NPR News

Hear traditional carols, along with seasonal favorites and dance tunes all contributing to Fiona's annual Celtic Christmas fest, with music from Altan and Cerys Matthews. Joining Fiona is broadcaster and musician Mary Ann Kennedy, who reminisces about big family reunions at Christmas and New Year and shares her favorite music for the season.

There are some people who believe you can tell a lot about a person from what they read. By that measure, judging from the year's most popular posts on Shots, you might think our readers include plenty of depressed parents obsessed with diet and excrement.

Luckily for you, dear readers, we here at Shots know that Web traffic isn't a scientific measure of personality or of quality — just of virality. Plenty of powerful, public service stories failed to make our Top 10 list for the year. That caveat delivered, here's a look at the stories that kept you clicking in 2012.

Jeff Jarvis has had enough of the White House's petition site.

The 1-year-old site, We the People, is meant to be a place for Americans to directly entreat the president. Any petition that gathers more than 25,000 signatures in its first month is supposed to generate an official response from the Obama administration.

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band makes its sixth appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live in Charleston, W.V. Widely credited with revitalizing the sound of New Orleans jazz, the band blew down musical barriers by combining its love of traditional sounds with funk and bebop.

She won. She lost. She won again.

Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick will represent Arizona's 1st Congressional District when she returns to Washington this week after sitting out a term. This time around, Kirkpatrick hopes to strengthen her foothold in a swing district, but she's dealing with a tricky electorate.

First elected to the House in 2008, Kirkpatrick turned a red district blue. Then in 2010, the backlash against President Obama and his health care plan hurt her. So, a Republican dentist from Flagstaff took her seat for a term.

The act of toasting feels natural: You lift your arms in affirmation and drink in honor of an occasion or a loved one.

It's what millions will do this week as they ring in the New Year, but why? Like shaking hands or saluting, toasting is a habit with incredibly foggy beginnings, so we here at The Salt decided to dig into it, for the sake of science.