SANTA SAYS >>>>

By the time Santa was 6, my mother had already figured out I was a little too chubby and clumsy to be in the ballet, but when I decided I wanted to be an ice skater, she didn't have the heart to tell me that might not be the best fit, either. For four years, I donned brightly colored leotards and caught the sleigh to the local hockey rink, where I failed miserably at learning the simplest turns and spins. All I really wanted to do was skate.

As I have mention before, the Tacoma Art Museum and Franciscan Health Systems have erected an outdoor ice-skating rink across the street from TAM for those who just want to skate. 

And today's the perfect day to try it out. Not only is the rink open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the neighboring Two Five Trees tree lot open, AND the European-style outdoor holiday market bustles in front of TAM, but a free community festival will consume the museum, too.

Sugar and spice and everything free is Santa song of today's Let It Snow community festival, a merry, merry tradition that's ho-ho-hosted every year by the Tacoma Art Museum. The free community event lights up at 10 a.m. and includes dance performances by Metro Arts and Grant Elementary, festive music from the Rainier Ringers and portraits in spoken word and image from 20 local presenters. While the entertainment fills the main floor, free craft projects will be offered upstairs. Create a pop-up holiday card for family and friends or an ornament to hang on our community tree in Tollefson Plaza.

Everything the Tacoma Art Museum envisioned this holiday season comes to fruition today.

[Tacoma Art Museum, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., free, ice skating $7-$8, 1701 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.4258]

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Give the Weekly Volcano a "LIKE" present

PLUS: 2011 Super Best of Tacoma Bought and Sold Readers' and Staff picks

PLUS: 2011 Best of Olympia Bought and Sold Readers' and Staff picks

SANTA SAYS >>>>

Some groups still celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.

The University of Puget Sound offers its students and faculty, along with the community, an opportunity to prepare for the holiday with a night of song and Scripture.

The Festival of Lessons and Carols is the University of Puget Sound's gift, Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Kilworth Memorial Chapel on the north end of the campus along North 18th between Union Avenue and Lawrence Street.

I've attended several of these, hiding in the back. It's always a packed house. Everyone sings carols and lights candles as a symbol of hope for the season. it's pretty cool.

If my calculations are correct this is the 29th year the university has presented this program. The first year, the choir director had the choir lead students in carol singing before finals took place. The next year, they modeled the format from the King's College Choir at Cambridge University in England.

This year University Chaplain Dave Wright (1996 represent) will lead a Christmas service that was developed in 1918 at King's College, University of Cambridge, England.

Besides audience participation in carol singing, the University's Adelphian Concert Choir and Voci d'Amici will perform. The event will be a candlelit service.

The event is free and open to the public; however, the university will be collecting non-perishable food items for St. Leo's Food Connection.

[Kilworth Chapel, Sunday, Dec. 4, 7-8:30 p.m., free, North 18th and Warner Street, Tacoma, 253.879.3100]

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Give the Weekly Volcano a "LIKE" present

PLUS: 2011 Super Best of Tacoma Bought and Sold Readers' and Staff picks

PLUS: 2011 Best of Olympia Bought and Sold Readers' and Staff picks

SANTA SAYS >>>>

Those bold and brassy horn-players over at the Gig Harbor Orchestra are ditching the rest of orchestra. But don't worry - it's for one night only. Without the addition of those pansy woodwinds and strings (I kid!), the Signature Brass Quintet has a chance to shine in all its strong, honking glory - though they will be accompanied by soprano Meg Daly and organist Jeff Orr.

Get blasted into the holiday season Dec. 10 as the quintet performs traditional carols, popular tunes, and classical masterpieces with a horny spin. All puns aside though, the quintet will perform a swing version of "Jingle Bells," Pachelbel's "Canon" displayed through an unbelievable number of carol themes and "Do You Hear What I Hear" interpreted like Ravel's "Bolero."  A highlight will be when the Quintet and Jeff Orr combine for Handel's "Concerto for Organ." 

From the sublime "Christmas Concerto" by Corelli of the Baroque era, to the mariachi sounds of "Feliz Navidad," the concert will be entertaining and festive.

[St. John's Episcopal Church, Saturday, Dec. 10, 7 p.m., free, donations accepted, 7701 Skansie Ave., Gig Harbor, gigharbororchestra.org]

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Give the Weekly Volcano a "LIKE" present

PLUS: 2011 Super Best of Tacoma Bought and Sold Readers' and Staff picks

PLUS: 2011 Best of Olympia Bought and Sold Readers' and Staff picks

SANTA SAYS >>>>

Although it is de rigueur to deplore the commercialism of Christmas, the holiday, almost by definition, is a celebration of industrialist, capitalist society. Sometime in the mid-A.D.s (that's after the B.C.s), Europeans combined their pagan and newly Christian traditions together in a half-assed sort of way and Christmas was born, albeit a Christmas that would be unrecognizable to many today.

It did OK, as holidays go, but the Protestant movement squelched any momentum it had in its youth.

The heretical holiday remained fairly unpopular through the mid-1800s (apparently, Dec. 25 was just another workday), but the Victorians brought it back (and changed it forever). Dickens put the kibosh on the naysayers with A Christmas Carol. And Prince Albert, as Zadie Smith notes in her book The Autograph Man, charmed all of America with the Christmas tree, a tradition from his native Germany.

Blossoming, as it was, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, Christmas couldn't help but become the show of wealth, prosperity, and thingery that it is today.

Oh, I might have had something to do with the whole Christmas gift-giving thing, too.

Anyhoo, children of all ages should check out Victorian Country Christmas beginning Wednesday - the holiday madness started with them. History comes alive as you tour the lavishly decorated old-fashioned storefronts, listen to carolers, ride in carriages, Santa Tram and the Christmas Carousel, and chow on home-style cooking.

[Puyallup Fairgrounds, Wednesday, Nov. 30-Saturday, Dec. 3 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 4 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., $8-$10, free parking, Ninth and Meridian, Puyallup, website]

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Give the Weekly Volcano a "LIKE" present

PLUS: 2011 Super Best of Tacoma Bought and Sold Readers' and Staff picks

PLUS: 2011 Best of Olympia Bought and Sold Readers' and Staff picks

SANTA SAYS >>>>

Travelers who come upon tiny Leavenworth in the eastern Cascades may have to rub their eyes to make sure they didn't take a wrong turn and end up in a foreign country. Leavenworth's Bavarian architecture - from the onion-shaped domes to the fairy tale characters painted on storefronts - may be enough to convince visitors they somehow wound up in southern Germany.  

Actually, visitors are three short hours away from Tacoma at one of the state's most popular tourist destinations, especially during the holiday season with the Nov. 25 Christkindlmarkt and December Christmas Lighting Festivals.

Leavenworth began much differently though, as a pioneer settlement in 1884. Fortune soon struck when a railroad line was laid through town in 1892. Land speculators followed, including the town's namesake, Capt. Charles Leavenworth. In 1904 a sawmill opened, ushering in boom times.

But Leavenworth's boom went bust in the '20s when the town lost both its sawmill and the railroad. Leavenworth limped along for several years. In 1962 a group of citizens brainstormed ideas to revive the town. By 1963, the Bavarian theme was chosen and development of Bavarian-inspired architecture followed.

Today, this town of 1,965 is inundated by nearly 1.5 million people annually, and yet the locals maintain their small-town friendliness.

Leavenworth may be a Bavarian village, but its shops comprise a garish kingdom of touristy knickknacks - wood carvings, glass objects, soaps, figurines, T-shirts, toys. Average shoppers can satisfy their curiosity, and empty their wallets, in an afternoon. Of note are the Hat Shop's silly hats and wigs, Kris Kringl Christmas collectible shop and the fudge making at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

The Nutcracker Museum boasts a collection of 5,000 nutcrackers, from palm size to life size. Call 509.548.4708 for daily tour information.

Holiday Events

NOV. 25-27: Christkindlmarkt will be held outdoors on Front Street at the City Park to welcome the Christmas shopping season with food, music and activities for children.

DEC. 2-4, 9-11, 16-18: Leavenworth's nationally acclaimed Christmas Lighting Festival returns for an emotional visit to a turn of the century Bavarian Christmas, holiday personalities and a ceremonial lighting of the town. On Friday evenings there isn't a lighting ceremony but the fake Saint Nicholas arrives around 4 p.m. at the Front Street Gazebo. Saturday and Sunday, festivities begin with fake Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus characters arriving in town at noon. Visitors enjoy live music and entertainment all afternoon into the evening, including the Lighting Ceremony starting at 4:30 p.m. when the Village and the trees in Front Street Park come alive.

How To Get There

A quicker and somewhat scenic three-hour route: Interstate 90 east to Highway 97 north to Highway 2 west.  A more scenic but more tedious 3.5-hour route:  Interstate 5 north to Highway 2 east over Stevens Pass.

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Give the Weekly Volcano a "LIKE" present