The Louis Armstrong Holiday Experience!

Gather the family around, it’s time for the Louis Armstrong Holiday Experience! Join the Louis Armstrong House Museum’s Hyland Harris as he tells some of our favorite stories related to Louis and Lucille Armstrong’s various Christmas celebrations spent at home and on the road. There’s a peak into Louis’s Christmas record collection, a glimpse at some of the holiday cards Louis sent and received, and a complete, unedited 1971 reading of “The Night Before Christmas” taken directly from one of Louis’s home-recorded reel-to-reel tapes. Plus, holiday tunes performed in our Living Room by Ethan Iverson, Champian and Stephen Fulton and Catherine Russell and Tal Ronen!

We created a version of this special in 2020 as a ticketed event but are releasing it free on social media so you can watch it anytime during the holidays and share it with friends and family around the world. Enjoy!

A quick addendum on “The Night Before Christmas,” which is having a bit of a moment right now thanks to the efforts of journalist Danny Freedman. In case you’ve missed it, here’s Freedman’s piece on Armstrong’s reading of Clement Clarke Moore’s legendary poem in Smithsonian magazine, plus an NPR interview with Freedman from last week. Given the “That’s My Home” theme of this site, it’s appropriate to spend some time Louis Armstrong’s final recording, made in his Den on February 26, 1971. Enjoy and to all of our readers out there who celebrate, have a very Cool Yule (and a Merry Swiss Kriss)!