REJOICE, GIVE THANKS, AND SING

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23 @ 8:00PM

This new production of one of the nation’s most highly acclaimed annual musical celebration marks the 100th anniversary of the annual Christmas Festival from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Featuring St. Olaf’s renowned choirs and orchestra, the program’s rich blending of compositions will highlight selections from previous Christmas Festivals.

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THE WOODMANS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

Episode: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Francesca Woodman

The Woodmans were a family of well-known artists bonded in their belief that making art was the highest form of expression. For their daughter Francesca – one of the late 20th century’s most recognized and influential photographers – fame came only after her suicide at 22. Her family was broken apart by – and in a sense healed by – art.

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HOLIDAY TABLES & TRADITIONS

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2 @ 5:00PM & 9:00PM

An Italian Christmas Eve. A Mexican-American Christmas Day. A Chinese New Year. A Passover Seder. Four holidays, four very different tables and traditions. Join celebrity chef and culinary author Lidia Bastianich as she travels across America in a celebration of culture through food in the new PBS prime-time special, Lidia Celebrates America: Holiday Tables and Traditions, airing tonight.

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CHARLES & RAY EAMES: THE ARCHITECT AND THE PAINTER

MONDAY, DECEMBER 19 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM

From 1941 to 1978, this husband-wife powerhouse brought unique talents to their partnership. He was an architect by training; she was a painter and sculptor. Together their work helped shape the second half of the 20th century and remains culturally vital and commercially popular today. Best known for their beautiful and functional, yet inexpensive furniture, most notably their signature molded plywood “Eames chair,” Charles and Ray’s influence on significant events and movements in post-World War II American life – from the development of modernism to the rise of the computer age – is less widely understood.

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DOWNTON ABBEY

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25 @ 7:00PM & 11:00PM

The Downton Abbey estate stands a splendid example of confidence and mettle, its family enduring for generations and its staff a well-oiled machine of propriety. But change is afoot at Downton — change far surpassing the new electric lights and telephone. A crisis of inheritance threatens to displace the resident Crawley family.

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THE LITTLE MERMAID FROM SAN FRANCISCO BALLET

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM

John Neumeier — director and chief choreographer for Hamburg Ballet — blends dance, dramatic storytelling and spectacle into a unique interpretation of a classic Hans Christian Andersen’s tale. With choreography, sets, costumes, and lighting, all by Neumeier, this ballet—as much theater as it is dance—takes the dancers into deep emotional terrain. The acclaimed production of The Little Mermaid from San Francisco Ballet airs on Great Performances Friday, December 16 at 7:00pm and midnight.

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LIONESS

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15 @ 8;00PM & 11:00PM

On April 6, 2004, a U.S. Marine combat unit made its way through Ramadi’s narrow streets on a hunt for Iraqi insurgents. As the soldiers turned a corner they were ambushed, sparking a series of firefights that spread across the city and ignited a week of bloody combat. Specialist Morgan and Sergeant Ruthig, both squad automatic gunners, survived this battle, while others soldiers were not as lucky. But subsequent press reports neglected to mention one thing: that both Morgan and Ruthig are women.

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