SANTA SAYS >>>>

There are many differences between the New Year's celebrations of New York City and Tacoma, the most telling of which is the trajectory of each ball. In New York, the ball drops - another year down the tubes. In Tacoma, however, the ball is set on fire.           

"We're really stepping up the fire aspect to mitigate the cold," First Night Tacoma co-producer Lance Kagey told the Weekly Volcano. "Last year, we had Zen fire gardens, which are very cool basins filled with black sand. You can draw in them with sticks and fire traces your drawing. We'll have those again. We'll have some fires to gather around for warmth. We have a big fire spectacular at the end of the night, and lots of fire performers throughout the evening."

As in years past a parade kicks off Tacoma's First Night 2012 nighttimeNew Year's Eve celebration in downtown Tacoma. And this year isn't any different. Beginning at 6:30 p.m. the "World's Shortest Parade" will march from the Graffiti Garages to the Theatre on the Square featuring representatives from the Dockyard Derby Dames, fire dancers, Metro Arts Dragon team and many more.

Of course, the World's Shortest Parade is only a beginning. A First Night Tacoma button will allow you access to 20 different stages and the museums, offering a wide variety of entertainment options. The annual, all-ages, family-friendly, alcohol-free New Year's Eve celebration follows the Chinese lunar calendar, and this year is the year of the dragon. In this spirit there will be two large dragons making an appearance at the festival - a 35-foot creation by Metro Parks Tacoma, and a 14-foot fire-breathing metal beast.

The entertainment schedule for the night blows my mind. Check out the schedule here.

First Night Buttons are only $10 before the festival begins. The buttons make the perfect gift. Click here to discover where you can grab one or 20.

So if you're just glad 2011 is over, stay at home and join Carson Daly and Justin Bieber in Times Square as they watch the ball drop. If you're excited to get started with 2012, head to downtown Tacoma, where the ball, and spirits, will be on fire.

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

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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 >>>>

The good word out of Tacoma is Jessica Spring, proprietor of Springtide Press in Tacoma. You can learn letterpress printmaking from Spring.  You can rent her photopolymer plate making equipment. You can buy her artist books, broadsides and ephemera incorporating handmade paper and letterpress printing. And you can view her art at the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation show, which she won.

What Santa is really licking his candy cane over is you can print a Christmas ornament on Spring's letterpress equipment while tossing back holiday drinks Tuesday night at The Tempest Lounge. Spring will be on hand from 6:30-8:30 p.m. allowing you to drink while operating her heavy machinery.

Bring canned and packaged food for the Emergency Food Network.

[Tempest Lounge, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 6:30-8:30 p.m., food donations, Tempest Lounge, 913 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253.272.4904]

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

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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 >>>>

When you pick up the paper tomorrow (yes, the Weekly Volcano produces a paper in addition to this amazing blog and ridonkulous website) you'll see the Weekly Volcano's Holiday Guide Four(!) is all about eating, drinking and shopping locally, and that means you should too.

How about a gift certificate?

How about one for Tacoma Art Place?

As you know, Tacoma Art Place is a non-profit 501(c)3 that provides a place for artists of all artistic and financial abilities to tap into their creativity. The Hilltop Tacoma venue engages the community through its classes and community workshops. So ... make gift giving easy this year by supporting your local non-profit arts center and cut down on packaging. Give family and friends Tacoma Art Place memberships. By doing so, you'll be giving 12 months of creativity. Click here for details.

Oh, the awesome Tacoma Art Place has a couple of ornament classes on the books. At 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18, TAP will host a corkaments class. For $15, you will learn how to turn your wine corks into cute ornaments. At 2:30 p.m. on the same day, TAP will teach you how to make cinnamon clay ornaments for a $15 fee. Give TAP a buzz and RSVP.

[Tacoma Art Place, 1116 S. 11th St., Tacoma, 253.238.1006]

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

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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 >>>>

Santa loved the '70s. Admittedly, '70 to '71 are something of a blur for me, seeing as some bad candy canes were circulating through the North Pole. However, H.R. Pufnstuff and The Electric Company were not lost on me.

During rest of the '70s, we we're pumping out some awesome toys.

Just about the time of Bobby Brady's tiki amulet, the tarantula-attracting totem trinket that sent the Brady's to Hawaii, my castle was humming. While Eric Estrada and Lynda Carter seem well suited to talk about leisure suits, the elves were making Shrinky Dinks sets every three minutes. We had those plastic pieces shrinking to about a third of the size and nine times thicker after only two minutes in the oven. We pulled in a few elves from the gauchos department to crank out more Dinks.

As with most toys we make, except LEGOs, interests change and we changed focus. About the time Pinky Tuscadero popped onto the scene, our Shrinky Dinks production was operating at 25 percent of what it was in 1973.

I bring up the Dinks because the Museum of Glass will host a Shrinky Dinks workshop during its Family Day celebration today. Inspired by Paul Stankard's Beauty Beyond Nature still-life sculptures encased in clear crystal exhibition, local artist Jennifer Adams - she of Tacoma Is For Lovers fame - will teach families how to make Shrinky Dinks mini-world magnets, which should make great gifts.

Paul Twedt's Holiday Musicale will be the entertainment during the afternoon of creativity.

[Museum of Glass, Saturday, Dec. 10, 1-4 p.m., $5-$12, $36 for families, 1801 Dock St., Tacoma, 253.284.4750]

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

LINK: Arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

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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 >>>>

Discovering a beader is akin to kissing someone for the first time. You walk away from the experience giggling to yourself, agog over how warm the sun feels, how bright the future looks. Everything seems possible.

Many of these sunny folks hangout at Shipwreck Beads. I wandered around the Lacey store awed by the amount of people milling about. I counted 20 individuals at a couple of different points in time.  While there were a few who appeared to be holiday shopping, there was also a pair of young girls working on a project with the help of a salesperson. There were a few grand-matronly types in holiday sweaters looking interestedly at the Christmas project packages, and most surprising to me, there were four men. Only one of these was hanging on to his wife's arm.

A young adult guy was asking a salesperson for project tips while another; older hippie-type was wandering the bins, waiting to check on a special-order bead. The last guy piqued my interest the most: he looked like the kind of guy you'd see quaffing beers with his buddies at the Viking Tavern after a hard day of pouring concrete, but rather than sitting on a barstool, he was standing by the bins of small silver beads and findings. He was poring over the selection, trying to find the perfect ones for a necklace for his girlfriend.

Santa has found Shipwreck's selection inspiring enough to hook me into wanting to be more involved in the hobby of beading. I bet the elves could also use a hand creating beaded poinsettia dollies, beaded poinsettia bathroom mats and beaded poinsettia shower curtains.

Santa says, "Be the bead" - even though I don't really know what that means.

[Shipwreck Beads, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, 8560 Commerce Pl. Dr. NE, Lacey, website]

PLUS: 2011 South Sound Holiday Happenings

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

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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 >>>>

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 >>>>

I keep running into Screamers. Blame Jim Henson and Dan the Monster Man, not my elves.

Screamers are everywhere, and they'll change your life. Seattle-based progenitor of Screamers, Dan Reeder, says they're great for focusing the attention of visitors away from kitchen messes, your mom or anything else you'd prefer people not look at.

The last Screamer I found was on a scouting mission at Shepard House Antiques in downtown Tacoma. It was wearing a University of Puget Sound hat. It's priced at $165.

It's a screaming deal.

If you want to make your own, you'll have to massacre a lot of sheets of newsprint, rolls of masking tape and coat hangers.

Unless you're an elf, the paper mache project most likely will make you ... wait for it ... scream.

[Shepard House Antiques, 748 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.404.1900]

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 >>>>

With Thanksgiving looming large, you must succumb to the siren song of the approaching Holiday season.

The folks at the Weekly Volcano have posted its first round of holiday events in the South Sound. Yes, they present this list awfully early this year. That's so them!

Click here for the scoop on movies, plays, dance, concerts, outdoor activities and festivals coming your way between now and the end of the year - plus other events that defy categorization and enough Nutcrackers to satisfy even those dance enthusiasts who don't know the difference between a pas de deux and the shag. There's also a searchable database of events here.

The Weekly Volcano will also offering four print holiday guides, the first hitting the street Wednesday.

Once you've baked enough cookies to last until Easter, spent three weeks worth of paychecks, and played all of your Christmas albums backward, break out those wool socks and long underwear and hit the area for something new.

LINK: Santa Says RSS feed

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SANTA SAYS >>>>

The North Pole is for a lot of characters. Up here, we have elves, of course. Lot of them. More than we actually need.  We also have snowmen and snowwomen, arctic puffins, Winter Warlock, Snow Miser, Yukon Cornelius, Abominable Snow Monster, and King Moonracer and the unfortunate folks on the Island of Misfit Toys.

Tacoma, on the other hand is for lovers, artists and, hopefully, lovers of artists, at least in the eyes of the folks from Tacoma Is For Lovers and King's Books.

This weekend, Tacoma is for Lovers - the official pro-Tacoma outfit, which is also a community based organization that hypes local arts and Tacoma in general - hosts the Artist Craft Fair, which is an opportunity to revel in local art, and maybe, just maybe, buy some gifts. Held at King's Books from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, the Artist Craft Fair will feature work from Krystal Kerr, Ryan Loiselle, Maura Shapley, Matthew Porter, Lisa Hasegawa, Heidi Kress, Chandler O'Leary, Scott and Jacqui Scoggin, Jessica Spring, Rochelle Wells and many others.

It's doubtful my North Pole peeps will make the Artist Craft Fair. We're busy. You never know. Maybe Tacoma will be for lovers, artists and an elf named Hermey.

[King's Books, Friday, Nov. 19-Saturday, Nov. 20, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., free admission, 218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.8801]

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SANTA SAYS >>>>

According to my Magic Snowball, there's 38 days of shopping left. That means acute cases of both Toysrusophobia and Costcophobia are increasingly appearing in the mindscapes of the frenzied. Symptoms include fierce scowls, crabby retorts, rolled eyeballs, thinly disguised venomous sarcasm and jumpy middle fingers.

One way to relieve these symptoms is to make sure that you do some, if not all, of your holiday shopping at the shops of small local merchants or bazaars. A good rule of thumb: Do no more than 50 percent of your shopping at places that have listings on NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange. By adhering to this guideline, you may spend a little more dough, but you'll flip off far fewer of your fellow consumer zombies. And hey, that's what the holidays are all about, right?

But before you decide to curl up into a ball inside your big down parka and never come out, take into account all of the lovely things that accompany all of this weirdness. One of my favorite South Sound happenings is the annual Yule Boutique, Pacific Lutheran University's Women's Club signature event held on campus.

Each year, approximately 100 vendors from around the Puget Sound region gather to sell their handcrafted items, which include everything from jewelry, pottery and woodworking to soaps and Christmas wreaths. It's sort of the Big Dance of local holiday bazaars. Before a vendor is allowed to rent a booth, a jury must approve their wares to ensure quality.

The event features musical entertainment from a five-member recorder-playing group in the morning and accordion player Dick Myking in the afternoon. Traditional Scandinavian pastries, lefse and Greek food will also be served.

All the proceeds from the event are used to fund PLU student scholarships.

The Army ROTC will be operating a shuttle to bring shoppers from the various parking lots across campus to the entrance of Olson.

[Olson Auditorium, Saturday, Nov. 19, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., $3, free for PLU students, Pacific Lutheran University, off 124th Street South and 10th Avenue South, Parkland]

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