Don’t Hug Me – A Christmas Carol Lightens Up Holiday Spirits

(KNSI) – Return to Bunyan Bay this week when Don’t Hug Me – A Christmas Carol plays out on stage at the Paramount Center for the Arts in St. Cloud.

It is one of six shows written by Phil Olson in the Don’t Hug Me universe. Olson says he uses his family as inspiration.

“My father would tell us that he is the Norwegian who loved his wife so much he almost told her and a typical kind of conversation in my family would be kind of like you know, ‘Honey, tell me you love me. Oh, for crying in the beer nuts, I told you I loved you when we got married. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.’”

In this version of Don’t Hug Me, bar owner Gunner Johnson gets in a fight with his wife and goes out on the snowmobile where he falls through the ice. He is visited by three ghosts of Christmas in what is a parody of the Charles Dickens’ classic. The show runs Wednesday and Thursday with matinees at 1:30 p.m. and evening performances at 7:30.

Olson says the same cast and crew have been helping him bring the characters to life for decades now.

“We had this cast set up in Minneapolis from the original Minneapolis production and they just kind of moved around with other productions around Minnesota and Wisconsin. Many of them have been with me for almost 20 years, actually.”

The last time the show was in St. Cloud was 2019. The music is written by Olson’s brother and the play has 17 original numbers. Tickets start at $20 each. Find a link to buy them here.

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