Dates: Tuesday/Thursday, December 3, 5, 10, 12, 17
Time: 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Place: ISU Dreiser Theater
221 N. 6th St., Terre Haute
Cost: $25

Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” is arguably America’s most beloved Christmas song. So how did a Russian-Jewish immigrant from New York’s Lower East Side come to write this iconic Yuletide ballad, and how did the song come to define some of the deepest themes in American culture such as yearning for a mythic New England past, belief in the magic of the “merry and bright” Christmas season, and longing for the havens of hearth and home? Join OLLI Coordinator and retired music educator Pete Kikta as he guides the class through the origins and mystique of the song “White Christmas,” how it framed not one, but two classic Hollywood movie musicals, and how it became the most recorded Christmas song in American popular music. This course includes the viewing of both Holiday Inn and White Christmas, and in addition to exploring the importance of “White Christmas,” the class will also learn the basic conventions of the movie musical and why that genre has such a strong cultural appeal. Presented in five sessions over two weeks in December, this course is guaranteed to put everyone in the Christmas Spirit!