Matinee Theater was geared to cater to one of the most difficult radio slots to fill, that of Sunday afternoon, when the audience was highly diverse and often consisted of families looking for something special, and also appropriate to the day. Matinee Theater attempted to fill the gap by providing serious live dramas with wide appeal. It had actually started out as show called Dangerously Yours, starring Victor Jory, and had expanded its repertoire and changed its name, although it kept Jory on, in an attempt to appeal more broadly.
"A Stable in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania" was deliberately written to be a modern example of the old genre of the miracle play, about the interventions of saints and angels in the lives of people. It aired on Christmas Eve 1944 and opens with two old men dining at a fancy club on Christmas Eve and scrooging it up over the foolishness of Christmas commercialism and the popular belief in the myth of the Christmas story. But their waiter happens to remark that it's not a myth at all. In fact, it just happened again a year ago....
You can listen to "A Stable in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania" at the Internet Archive (episode 10). (It is also here as 144.)
