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Category: Christmas

Gilded Age illustration of a moonlit, snowy night with a horse drawn coach outside a mansion. People cast long shadows on the snow.

Holiday Cheer? Try These Seasonal Favorites

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Here's a handy guide to holiday stories that readers frequently turn to at the Library. Favorites include the tale of who invented Christmas tree lights, how Truman Capote wrote "A Christmas Memory" (the Library has his handwritten first draft) and how a Central American flowering plant became the favorite Christmas flower around the world.

Mariah Carey, Santa Claus and Librarian Carla Hayden, all in holiday attire, post at Christmas tree in the Great Hall. Carey holds a framed certificate from the National Recording Registry.

All I Want for Christmas Is … Mariah Carey at the Library?

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Mariah Carey surprised a festive crowd during the Library’s Santa Claus edition of “Live! At the Library“ last night, making an entrance as her signature hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” played in the Great Hall. Decked out in a stage-worthy sparkling dress and pink high heels, she picked up the song's framed certificate of induction from the National Recording Registry from Librarian Carla Hayden and - like most everyone else at the party - posed for a couple of pictures by the Christmas tree.

A young woman with close-cropped orange hair and bright red lipstick sings directly into the camera

The 2023 National Recording Registry – Mariah Carey, Eurythmics, Jimmy Buffett, Wynton Marsalis, John Lennon (And Lots More)

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The 2023 class of the National Recording Registry adds music from Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, Daddy Yankee, the Eurythmics, Jimmy Buffett, Wynton Marsalis, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and several others. The 25 additions range from 1908 to 2012 and includes early blues and Mariachi music, along with radio broadcasts from the 1930s. A highlights video, with interviews with several of the artists, is included.

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

How “It’s a Wonderful Life” Almost Never Happened

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Elizabeth Brown is a reference librarian in the Researcher and Reference Services Division. This article appears in the Library of Congress Magzine, Nov.-Dec. 2022. Perhaps the most beloved Christmas film of all time got its start during a morning shave. Philip Van Doren Stern, while getting ready for work one day in 1938, had an …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

“A Christmas Memory,” Truman Capote’s Classic, Handwritten at the Library

Posted by: Neely Tucker

"A Christmas Memory," Truman Capote's bittersweet short story about his small-town Alabama childhood with his eccentric elderly cousin, has been one of the nation's most beloved tales in the holiday canon since it was first published in 1956. The Library has Capote's handwritten draft of the story, which reveals much about the young Capote.