麻豆约拍

"But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.", Matthew 19

It is an old saying that 'children make Christmas', but in this Christmas Day edition of Something Understood, Mark Tully considers what it is that we can all learn from that. He asks how a 'child-like' attitude to the celebrations of Christ's Nativity can help us get more from the day, both spiritually and socially.

In conversation with children's author Michael Morpurgo he discusses both the importance of Christmas traditions that are handed down the generations and what we can learn from children to make the idea of 'a season of peace and good will' more than just a well-meant form of words.

The programme includes contributions from children, including specially written verse and music and readings from successive younger generations, fictional and real, from the seventeenth century to the present. There's music from Debussy, Johnny Cash and The St. Petersburg Children's Choir and readings from Ronald Searle, Mary Haley Bell and Jean Jacques Rousseau.

The readers are Madeleine Southey, Samantha Bond, Gene Goodman and Jack Shepherd.

Producer: Frank Stirling
A Unique production for 麻豆约拍 Radio 4.