By Lauren Larson

Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano stages The Gift of Christmas every December: a two-hour spectacle with 1,200 cast members, pyrotechnics, lasers, trapezing elves, and Santa flying on wires. The three-hundred-foot stage uses LED screens. There are 17,000 costume pieces. Somewhere in there, a nativity.

Jim Hutchinson has played the Gold King for thirteen years. His costume features a massive red-feathered headdress and a torso-sized column balanced on his head. The production involves 21 live animals including camels, peacocks, and zebras. It used to feature an elephant that urinated onstage, causing performers to slip.

The church scouts ten Baby Jesuses each fall using SignUpGenius. Roles rarely open; flying angels are particularly coveted. Critics argue the money could be better spent, but senior pastor Jack Graham is clear: "Nothing is too extravagant for Christ."

By David Gauvey Herbert

We shared this story earlier this month, and it stuck around for our Best of Christmas list.

This sprawling Esquire profile traces Bob Rutan's extraordinary arc from desperate actor to beloved Macy's Santa to corporate executive overseeing Santaland and back down again. The piece reveals the unspoken fraternity of men who play Santa at Herald Square, where failed actors, combat veterans, and broken fathers find something approaching redemption in a twenty-dollar-an-hour gig. Through interviews with dozens of former Santas who maintain an omertà about their work, the narrative captures those transcendent moments when grown men swear they truly became Santa Claus, particularly during encounters with terminally ill children or families in crisis. Rutan's downfall plays as Greek tragedy, complete with an estranged daughter he hasn't heard from in seven years. The emotional center hinges on a single December night in 1991 when something inexplicable happened in Rutan's cottage, an encounter he would recount for years afterward.

By Stuart McGurk

This is from last Christmas, but I enjoyed it immensely.

Every New Year's Day, Emma Bisley asks the same question: who will win Christmas this year? As Sainsbury's head of campaigns, she thinks about it constantly. For British retailers, the difference between winning and losing means hundreds of millions of pounds.

Christmas advertising became an arms race after John Lewis's 2011 breakthrough "The Long Wait," showing a boy desperate to give rather than receive. Suddenly every brand wanted emotional ads that made people cry. Budgets hit millions. Sainsbury's made films about the WWI Christmas Truce. M&S had Mrs. Claus deliver presents by helicopter.

Then the industry shifted. Brands realized emotional ads could create spin-off sales. John Lewis sold enough toy penguins from one ad to pay for the entire campaign. Success killed creativity. One year, director Ben Priest pitched a story about two elderly rivals. John Lewis declined because nobody would buy plushies of two old men.

Now brands use System1, which digitally tests emotional responses. Testers watch ads while pressing buttons labeled Contempt, Disgust, Anger, Fear, Sadness, Happiness. An algorithm rates ads one to six stars based on how they bond viewers' subconscious to the brand.

This year, Sainsbury's BFG ad scored 5.9 stars. But Bisley won't know if she won Christmas until January sales figures arrive.

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By Bilge Ebiri

Ron Howard and Jim Carrey made How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 2000, and it nearly destroyed everyone involved. The makeup took eight hours initially, later reduced to three. Carrey wore itchy yak hair, ten-inch fingers, full contact lenses covering his eyeballs, and couldn't breathe through his nose. He had panic attacks, lay on the floor with paper bags between takes, and quit after the first day.

Howard hired a man who trained CIA officers in torture endurance. Richard Marcinko, founder of SEAL Team Six, taught Carrey techniques: punch yourself in the leg, eat everything, smoke constantly. Carrey chain-smoked through a long holder because the yak hair would catch fire. The only thing that truly helped was listening to the entire Bee Gees catalogue during makeup. He was in the costume for 92 days.

Six-year-old Taylor Momsen wore six pairs of tights, foam Who pads, crinoline, bloomers, garters, and shoes with inserts that curled her toes. Getting dressed required three people. Without fail, she'd need to pee once fully costumed. All 90 Whos wore single-use foam latex appliances that took eight hours to bake, with a one-in-five success rate.

Howard shot across nine soundstages simultaneously. Critics savaged the film. Roger Ebert predicted children would watch "with perplexity and distaste." It became one of 2000's biggest hits, earned $60 million in TV rights, and spawned marriages among Who actors.

Keith Morrison reads “The Night Before Christmas”.

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