Christmas is a holiday full of traditions. You might watch the same movie on Christmas Eve, or you might have a special way you open the stockings and the gifts on Christmas morning. Maybe, you always make that cookie recipe your family has passed down through generations.
When Ben Folds was making his new Christmas album, Sleigher, the idea of coming back to those traditions over and over again was on his mind.
"I think, at the end of the day, Christmas, because it happens every single year, gives you something to measure your life by. That is what I really connected to," he says.
In this session, Folds performs some of his new Christmas songs live, and he talks about his most memorable gift he got as a kid.
"That was my first instrument, the tape recorder," he says. "To me, that was the first thing I played — and then piano."
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.