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Musicians and record companies stand to benefit year after year from the staying power of such albums... like Nat King Cole's " >Christmas Album", which has remained a favorite for nearly four decades.

Poet and Commentator Andre Codrescu brings us a modern adaptation of an old Romanian fairy tale. Set in modern New Orleans, it is a cautionary tale about a wish for eternal youth. A young couple tries desperately to have a child. Finally when they were about to give up, a supernatural method brings them a baby, but at a cost...they must promise him that he'll never grow old. When the child, nicknamed Almond Joy, turns 18, he sets out on a quest for what his parents can't deliver. He winds up in the Valley of Christmas, but this paradise of eternal youth bores him and he hits the road. But when he arrives in New Orleans, there is nothing there. His home is covered with dust and Almond Joy has become an old man.

Linda speaks with Elizabeth Neuffer, the European Bureau chief for the Boston Globe, about the problems facing the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The Tribunal must serve justice to those who participated in the genocidal attacks on Rwanda's Tutsi people in 1994. More than half a million people were slaughtered. Neuffer says the Tribunal's efforts have been hindered by a lack of funding, staffing, and equipment, as well as corruption inside the Tribunal itself.

who perform in New York City's subway. The C.D. is called " Subplay" and it mixes 10 different styles, from blues to jazz to Chinese folk music. " Subplay" was produced by two young native New Yorkers who grew up listening to subway concerts.

NPR's Dean Olsher looks at the prosperous business built around re-issued jazz recordings.

Scott talks to George Campbell, a descendant of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of "Anne of Green Gables". It has become quite common for Japanese citizens to fly to Charlottestown, Prince Edward Island, Canada to get married where the fictious Anne was married in the book.

New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani has announced plans to send 1000 poorly-performing students from the city's public school system to local Catholic schools. We visit Bishop Loughlin (LOCK-lin) High School in Brooklyn to talk with students and educators about the differences between the public and parochial school settings. As NPR's Barbara Mantel reports, teachers feel that Catholic schools like Loughlin bring a sense of a mission to the job of teaching -- giving students a greater feeling of belonging than they receive in public schools.

Commentator Kristine Holmgren says as a young girl she was taught to remember the poor -- to be generous and share. Now she says there is little respect for the poor...they are seen as evil and the demonization of the poor is breeding cynicism about poverty. She worries that the plight of the poor in general no longer moves us. Rather, we are only moved by an interruption in our own material success.

about the current state of the hostages in Lima, Peru. The Red Cross delivered Christmas cakes to the captives who will spend Christmas Eve away from their families in the company of heavily-armed guerillas.

Storyteller Kevin Kling remembers a Christmas from his childhood... when his eager anticipation turned into performance anxiety: he suddenly had to demonstrate his ability to fly a gas-powered model airplane in front of his father -- a real pilot.