The show "reminds us that traditions are not museum pieces, but living things handed down imperfectly, reshaped by those who inherit them," writes Theater Critic Sean McMullen.

Every December, theatergoers return to Christmas stories the way we return to old family rituals not because they surprise us, but because they remind us who we’ve been and ask who we’re becoming.

“Mrs. Christmas,” now playing at The Aurora Theatre, understands this instinct deeply. It isn’t interested in reinventing Christmas so much as interrogating it, holding the holiday up to the light, and asking why we keep doing this year after year — even when it hurts a little.

Written by Tom Jacobson and directed with warm precision by Karole Foreman, “Mrs. Christmas” is a holiday musical about inheritance, not of money or property, but of tradition itself. A daughter inherits the mantle of her late mother, a woman whose identity had become inseparable from the elaborate, hyper-ritualized Christmas she curated for her community.

What follows is not a sentimental march through tinsel and carols, but a funny, sometimes biting, and ultimately tender exploration of what it means to be handed a tradition you didn’t ask for but feel guilty about refusing.

Much of the show’s success rests on the shoulders of its performers, who must carry both the humor and the emotional weight of the piece without the safety net of spectacle. The central role was originated by Linda Libby, performing under the intentionally on-the-nose moniker Linda “Carol” Libby, and in subsequent performances, has been taken up by Michelle Merring as Michelle “Carol” Merring, each bringing her own energy to a character who must be both narrator and emotional conduit.

The effect is closer to cabaret storytelling than traditional book musical work — demanding a performer who can pivot effortlessly between comedy, confession and song. Supporting this intimacy is the live accompaniment, with pianists such as Cody Bianchi or Anthony Zediker providing not just musical underscoring but an active onstage presence. Their playing gives the evening its rhythmic spine and reinforces the sense that this is a story being told directly to us, in the room, rather than at a polite theatrical distance.

Foreman’s direction keeps the piece intimate and actor-forward, treating memory like a physical object that can be unpacked, examined, and occasionally laughed at. The staging is spare but purposeful: A performer, a pianist, and a trove of ornaments, recipes, and stories that function like a private altar.

This is Christmas as lived experience rather than pageantry,  and in that way “Mrs. Christmas” feels like the flip side of Southern California’s most public holiday ritual, South Coast Repertory’s “A Christmas Carol,” which draws thousands each year in a kind of civic observance. Where SCR offers communal reassurance, “Mrs. Christmas” offers something quieter and riskier — permission to question the ritual itself.

What makes the show resonate is its refusal to dismiss sentimentality outright. It skewers it, certainly, but then rebuilds it with care. The humor is sharp, sometimes ribald, but never cruel. Beneath the jokes is a sincere reckoning with grief and obligation, how traditions can both anchor us and trap us, how they can be acts of love that calcify into expectations.

That question feels especially timely this season. SCR has just announced that its venerable “Christmas Carol,” now in its 45th year, will eventually give way to a brand-new adaptation by Amy Freed. Even our most entrenched Christmas traditions, it seems, are preparing for reinvention.

“Mrs. Christmas” arrives as a kind of case study in how that process might look. Not as a rejection of the past, but as a negotiation with it. How do you honor what came before without being crushed by it? How do you decide which rituals to carry forward and which to gently lay to rest?

In the end, “Mrs. Christmas” doesn’t tell audiences how to celebrate. Instead, it acknowledges the emotional labor Christmas requires and how it can push family aside while trying to embrace them; it makes space for ambivalence alongside joy. It reminds us that traditions are not museum pieces, but living things handed down imperfectly, reshaped by those who inherit them.

As Southern California’s holiday theater landscape stands on the brink of change, “Mrs. Christmas” feels less like an alternative to the classics and more like a necessary companion that understands the most meaningful Christmas stories are the ones that admit the holiday is complicated, and that loving it doesn’t always come easily.