This year, the Honolulu Theatre for Youth has pared down its annual "Christmas Talk Story." In its earlier versions, the show — made up of short monologues by local writers — had grown to two acts and included a live band. This year, it's an hour long, the three-member cast does the singing and accompaniment, and it works better.

HTY company actors Daryl Bonilla, Nara Cardenas and Aito Steele project genuine happiness, the vignettes are mostly upbeat, and — although the singing isn't commercial quality — the show will leave you feeling good.

What more could you ask of a holiday performance?

The tone is simpler and gentler than the more somber pieces of Christmases past. There's a sense of childlike discovery and a perspective that doesn't always get things right, but always gets things genuine, without any adult moralizing.

For the first time, the spoken pieces aren't restricted to a single voice, but feature two and three actors. It's a small change that adds variety and interest.

"The Christmas Witch," by Sean T.C. O'Malley, opens the program, with Cardenas taking on the role of a little girl in a black pointed hat who offers to boil Santa's big red butt in a pot of soup. How Santa gets her to smile for a Christmas photo is a study in reverse psychology.

In Rochelle delaCruz's "The Year of the Turkey," Bonilla and Steele capture a wild bird for their family's Thanksgiving dinner, but have second thoughts about the required butchering and plucking.

Megan Chock's "A Special Dollar On Christmas Eve" looks at the joy of giving from the perspective of a 7-year-old and Diane Aoki's "I Believe" incorporates Buddha into a Christmas memory.

Company actor Bonilla penned and acts in "Christmas Undercover," in which a youngster stalks Santa (one sneaky buggah) to a "Mission Impossible" soundtrack. Steele plays an old dog in Yokanaan Kearns' "Dogs Hate Christmas," and one wishes that director Eric Johnson had let Bonilla play the puppy instead of wag a toy dog.

An enterprising girl raises spending money by dismantling her grandpa's partial plate in Linda Tarawa's "Da Tooth Fairy," and Sara Wynhoff's "Angel Wings" is a bittersweet picture of a boy who simply wants his daddy to be proud of him.

Lest we miss the point of the production, Lee Tonouchi's "Da Meaning of Christmas Talk Story" recaps the messages beneath the scripts while grumbling about the production's lame cardboard special effects.

Cardenas' sweet solo on a Hawaiian verse of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" is a musical high point, and the cast muscles through the expected "Twelve Days of Christmas, Local Style," complete with new prompter placards.

Worth mentioning is that two playwrights (Chock and Wynhoff) are still in high school — suggesting there will be plenty of new Christmas Talk Story material for years to come.