Why We Keep Coming Back: The Power of Holiday Traditions on Stage
Every year around this time, I have the same thought:
Didn’t we just do this?
The snow comes out of storage. The costumes get unboxed. The same familiar title appears on the rehearsal calendars:
On paper, it might look like we’re stuck in a loop, repeating the same stories, the same costumes, the same moments on stage. But from where I stand, in the wings and in the shop, these shows are never the same.
Because the kids are never the same.
That’s the secret power of theatrical tradition: the title might repeat, but the people, the learning, and the impact are brand new every single year.
Holiday Traditions as Training Grounds
One of the biggest benefits of returning to beloved shows is that the adults already know the map.
We know where the tricky scene changes are.
We know which props like to go missing.
We know which moments make the audience gasp, laugh, or cry.
When we’re not reinventing the wheel from scratch, we get to spend our energy on something more important: student growth.
Instead of asking, “How do we even stage this”, we get to ask how can we hand more responsibilities to our student leaders? Where can we let Stagecraft 2 take the lead on the lighting hang? How can we support a shy kid who’s just stepped into their first ensemble role?
Holiday traditions give us a stable framework. Within that framework, we can experiment, stretch, and build skills without constantly fighting the calendar.
The Emotional Literacy of A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker
There are many holiday shows, pageants, and pantomimes. For us, we have an annual Madrigal Feast, The Nutcracker, and this year, The Christmas Carol, which we hope will help create new memories and start traditions for our extended theater families. Though these events are tied to special spots in the calendar, they are more than just seasonal entertainment.
A Christmas Carol is a masterclass in empathy.
At its heart, it’s a ghost story about second chances. Generosity over greed and compassion over isolation is a message we can afford to share and spread. It is a champion story of self reflection; what it means to look back at your life and decide to do better
Students don’t just memorize Scrooge’s lines; they wrestle with the idea that people can change. That we can’t always undo the past, but we can choose a different future.
The Nutcracker is pure imagination stitched together with discipline. I fell in love with lighting design at twelve years old watching the opening party sequence at the North Carolina Ballet’s production.
Beneath the costumes and choreography, it’s about wonder and curiosity. The dreams we carry in childhood don’t have to leave us as adults. Traveling beyond what’s familiar is crucial to growing up, but keeping that sense of amazement at the wider world is what makes life delicious. Saying “yes” to magic, even when it's scary, makes us better at our core.
For student performers and technicians, The Nutcracker is an exercise in world-building. They create snowstorms, candy kingdoms, and magical transformations out of light, fabric, and music. They learn that they are capable of bringing joy to hundreds of people in a single night. For me, it isn’t Christmas till the last show ends.
The Madrigal
The Madrigal Feast is one of those uniquely theatrical, uniquely communal experiences. On the surface, it looks like a faux-medieval banquet: candlelight, costumes, roasted meats, wassail, and layered choral music floating through the room.
Underneath, it’s a carefully choreographed piece of immersive theatre. Students aren’t just singers or actors in this world, they are courtiers greeting guests at the door, servers carrying in platters in time with the music, jesters weaving through the hall with bits of improvised comedy, and royalty in the form of community members presiding over the evening with scripted scenes and songs.
It’s a crash course in learning how to take care of guests and anticipate needs, understanding that no one role is more important than another, and staying in character and in service for an entire evening
Like A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker, the Madrigal tradition gives students a chance to step into something bigger than themselves, a living, breathing ritual that blends music, theater, and community in one shared experience. And just like those stage productions, each feast is both exactly the same and completely new, because the faces in the royal court, the servers in the aisle, and the kids laughing in the kitchen are different every time.
These stories help students build emotional vocabulary. “This moment feels like Scrooge’s wake-up call.” “This scene is our Land of Sweets. How do we make it feel magical?” “I want this to feel like a Jester moment. How do we do that?”
That’s emotional literacy disguised as holiday theater.
The Version of the Story They’ll Remember
If you ask alumni what they remember about doing these shows, it’s rarely the perfect cue or the exact choreography.
They remember the moment a piece of choreography worked during tech after a week of adjustments. The quiet pep talk backstage before their first entrance. The costume that made them feel like a princess.
The feeling of standing in the wings, hearing the audience murmur before the show starts.
For our Stagecraft students, it’s hearing the audience gasp when Marley flies across the stage, or hearing the audience hush as the lights dim and the Arabian dancers can be heard jingling faintly off stage before they enter.
Realizing they can look at a bare stage and imagine what could be there.
Holiday traditions become part of students’ internal timelines:
“That was the year I learned how to run the light board.”
“That was the year I was in charge of the crew.”
“That was the show where I realized I want to do this for the rest of my life.”
The show title is constant. The personal milestone attached to it is completely unique.
The Community Side of Tradition
On the audience side, something similar happens.
Families make our productions part of their own holiday rhythm:Grandparents who bring the grandkids every year. Parents who say, “We saw this when you were little, now you get to see your cousin in it.” Alumni who return, point at the stage, and say, “That used to be me.”
Those repeat experiences build relationships between families and the school, between the program and the community, between generations of students who might never overlap, but share the same stories.
Every time we mount these shows, we’re not just filling seats for a weekend. We’re raising the curtain on shared memories.
Tradition and Innovation Can Coexist
Sometimes, people worry that doing the same titles means we’re not evolving as artists or educators.
I’d argue the opposite.
Traditions like A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker provide a reliable anchor in the season. Financially, emotionally, and logistically. Even though the story remains the same, we can still innovate: new scenic concepts, updated choreography, different casting approaches, fresh interpretations of familiar characters.
One year, the innovation might be student-designed projections, a new arrangement of the music, or cross-curricular projects with history or English classes.
Tradition doesn’t have to mean stagnation. It can be the sturdy floor we build new artistry on top of.
Why We Keep Coming Back
So why do we keep returning to these holiday shows?
Every year there’s a new Scrooge finding his voice. A new Clara discovering what it’s like to hold a stage. A new crew student realizing they love making the magic happen. A new group of kids learning that their work matters to each other, to the audience, and to the larger story of our community.
The titles repeat.
The lessons don’t.
The students certainly don’t.
That’s why, even when we’re exhausted and racing from one production to the next, we keep pulling the snow out of storage and setting the stage for another December classic.
Because somewhere out there, in the audience or backstage, is a kid who will see this story for the first time, and it might just change something for them.
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