What happens
On Christmas Eve in Springfield, the Anderson family struggles to trim their tree while Jim Anderson fusses over every detail. He is persuaded to read the family a Christmas story, a tale of Hans Christian Andersen in nineteenth-century Denmark. Andersen, a gentle and generous man, sets out in the snow of Odense to deliver his stories and visit his neighbors. He meets a cobbler, a sharp-tongued shopkeeper, and his stern publisher, Jonas Colin, who tries to persuade him to write something more profitable. Andersen is firm about his purpose, and the story turns toward his loneliness and his hopes for the children he writes for. The episode is part of the series Father Knows Best.
Springfield on Christmas Eve, and nineteenth-century Odense, Denmark, on the day before Christmas
Characters: Jim Anderson, Margaret Anderson, Betty Anderson, Kathy Anderson, Janie, Hans Christian Andersen, Frumizling, Herr Bremmer
Listen for: Jim Anderson reading the Christmas story to his family, and Andersen's conversation with his publisher Jonas Colin
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.