Jon Solomon has hosted his 24-hour radio show for 24 years. (Photo courtesy of Jon Solomon.)

While many families are sitting down to dinner or preparing cookies and milk for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, Jon Solomon is lugging his provisions into the WPRB radio station in Princeton. By then, he’s already checked the spreadsheet he and his wife have perfected over the years to make sure he hasn’t forgotten any of the listed necessities he keeps on hand overnight, such as a change of socks and a bar of soap.

For the past 24 years (with the exception of December 1996), the Lawrence resident has made the same trip to the station for his annual 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show. The show begins at 6 p.m. Christmas Eve and ends at the same time Christmas day.

No sleep for 24-hour holiday DJWPRB, a commercial, non-profit radio station based in Princeton, is run by Princeton University students. Solomon, a Princeton native, first started working at the station when he was 15 and a Princeton High School student looking to bring a radio station to his school. As the college students prepared to go home for Christmas, Solomon, who is Jewish, eagerly signed his name on the sign-up sheet for Christmas Eve, resolving to stay through the night until a fellow DJ eventually showed up to relieve him. The next year, he decided to take on the challenge of 24 hours straight: a task he described as a “bear.”

Since then, he’s perfected his routine. He begins “training” for the Christmas show in November, cutting out caffeine and sweets from his diet (during the show he drinks green tea with a ginger mix instead of his preferred iced coffee).

He couldn’t have known then the kind of tradition he’d begun, not just in Princeton, but for listeners throughout the world, including Europe and Australia.

Whether you’re looking for Ghostface Killah’s “Ghostface Christmas” or the Swedish musician Lindstrøm’s 42 minute version of “Little Drummer Boy”—for 42 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, according to Solomon—the musical compilation is varied enough that any listener could find a song that keeps him from changing the station just yet.

“There are so many Christmas songs that are inescapable,” Solomon, 38, said. “And there are plenty of other outlets you can go for that, so I’m happy to provide one sort of alternative ... I have sort of a level of quality that I hope every track reaches.”

His collection of music spans over 8-10 boxes of CDs and a “decent-sized” box of LPs and 45s, in addition to digital mp3s.

Because the show is so listener-driven, being able to find songs on the fly is key, Solomon said. One of his new systems for organizing digital music is using the iTunes five-star rating system. He keeps separate folders for each year, a general Christmas music folder (which contains about 2,700 songs, or 6.1 days’ worth of music) and a folder for songs worthy of the five-star rating.

When it’s time for the show, Solomon burns CD-Rs in alphabetical order, and keeps them in three-ring binders in plastic sheets, as a way to cope with the madness that ensues during the first six hours of the show.

“A lot of the physical CDs, I’ll just scribble notes on them like, ‘Don’t forget about track 12!’” he said.

One of the show’s local listeners is Princeton resident Mike Lupica, the educational advisor at WPRB and a former station DJ.

“Generally I’m not a huge fan of themed radio, but I think for something like that and because he pulls stuff from so many different corners of music and mixes them up in a really interesting way, it completely holds my attention,” Lupica said.

Solomon, who also hosts a weekly Wednesday night show on WPRB, said his goal is to keep listeners’ interest by mixing up the musical styles in each set.

“If I have this great hip-hop song up against some late ’70s punk rock band up against kind of a reinterpretation of a classic Christmas staple, I find that it keeps me on my toes, keeps listeners on their toes,” he said.

Songs include anything from a soothing rendition of Clint and Amy’s “Silver Bells” to Billy Squire’s “Christmas is the Time to say ‘I Love You,’” with some generic Christmas radio greetings from numerous decades mixed in between.

As of November, he’d already begun to start previewing some new songs—like a new release by the Japanese band Shonen Knife—and was hoping to find some gems on recently digitized cassettes from the WPRB Christmas shows recorded in the ’80s.

It’s also become more about “traditions within the tradition” that people actually look forward to, like the annual visit to the station from Solomon’s friend Julia, who inevitably ends up falling asleep on the couch in view of the webcam running during the show. Listeners have also submitted their own renditions of Christmas songs about the show, like Noah Vail’s “Jon Solomon’s Christmas Eve Marathon,” which Solomon has used to kick off the show for the past few years.

There are always regular callers, he said, like a high school friend in Maine who requests the same song every year.

“But then there are people I’ve forgotten about that I recognize only by voice,” Solomon said. “It’s good to have that annual thing where people can check in, and I certainly have songs I save for different times when I know folks request them.”

As the night wears on, Solomon said he tends to get a little punch drunk at times, and even unusually emotional toward the end of the program.

“Part of it is it’s a culmination of a year’s work,” Solomon said. “Part of it is, people call up and say the most impossibly nice things. Its just unbearably kind. And I just can’t take it. And then it’s just, I’m also exhausted.”

One of his new traditions includes a visit from his wife and 3-year-old daughter, Maggie, who come to the station around 3 p.m. Christmas Day and stay until the end of the show.

“Part of the appeal is ... it’s almost like he’s performing a feat of strength on the radio,” Lupica said.

“Just keep him in mind if you wake up at three o’clock in the morning, you might want to turn on the radio to check on Jon, and see if he’s still alive.”

Listen to and watch Jon Solomon’s 24-Hour Holiday Radio Show from 6 p.m. Christmas Eve to 6 p.m. Christmas day on his website, keepingthescoreathome.com.