IT’S THE HOLIDAY SEASON

The holiday season is definitely here. Only one week until Christmas Eve, and then another week until we celebrate the end of the year.

Music and shopping

I love Christmas music (I start playing it each year shortly after Halloween), and there’s no Christmas music that’s better than live Christmas music. Jane Gennarelli has put together a list of nine upcoming live music events here in Downtown. There are choral events, tuba events, and even caroling that you can join.

Jane also put together a list of neighborhood shops where you can pick up some great gifts, without the hassles of mall and big box shopping. We published this last week, to give you a head start, but if you missed it, take a look now. Your time is running out.

KEEPING UP WITH WHAT’S HAPPENING

With everything that’s going on over the holidays, it’s hard to keep track. If you don’t want to miss anything, you should sign up for Jane Gennarelli’s weekly arts and entertainment newsletter. It’s free. You can sign up here, but you can also read about it here. Learn how she puts it together, and, if you’ve got events you want included, learn how to get them into the newsletter.

One of the goals of Jane’s newsletter (and the LNF Weekly website) is to promote local artists. Jane uses the work of a local artist as the header image each week for her newsletter. And I use a piece each month as the background for our cover page. The cover art this month is, appropriately, ‘First Snowfall’, a pastel by artist Cindy Morawski.

And you’ve probably noticed that we’re running a monthly series of pieces from photographer Al Rendon. This week’s photo is entitled ‘Raul’.

Food and drink

And then there’s Christmas food and drink.

Izabella Monzon’s family has always made empanadas for Christmas, and in this issue, Izabella has shared her recipe. Patricia Ortiz took a photo of the finished empanadas, and they look wonderful.

As for drinks, I come from a small town in Wisconsin, where eggnog was a Christmas tradition. Last year I stumbled upon a terrific eggnog recipe. It made the best eggnog I’ve ever had. I shared it with some friends back in Wisconsin, and they also endorsed it.

Eggnog is not something you’ll want to share with your pets. Nancy Diehl of the Cannoli Fund has put together some other tips for keeping your pet healthy and safe during the annual celebrations.

Places worth visiting

My first Christmas party this year was at SAALM, the San Antonio Art League and Museum in King William. I’ve known about it for years, but I’d never been inside until two weeks ago. It’s a terrific place, and I’ve written an article about it.

Christmas always makes me nostalgic, and when it comes to nostalgia, it’s hard to beat vinyl LP record albums. But they’re no longer just nostalgia. They’re back in a big way. The best place to see what’s available is the new Southtown Vinyl store on South St. Mary’s. Read my article about Southtown Vinyl and the resurgence of music on vinyl.

VOICES

And finally, this issue is full of ‘voices’ — people from the neighborhood who have a special ex- pertise or point of view and who are sharing their knowledge with the rest of us.

Since I was just talking about promoting local artists, let me start by pointing you to this piece by photographer Peter Szarmach. He’s in charge of SAALM’s annual juried art exhibition, and he’s asking artists to submit their work. Peter says that there are more than $10,000 in awards available.

You’ve already met Janie Barrera. She’s the CEO and founder of LiftFund, a regional non-profit (based here in the neighborhood) that provides advice and financing to small businesses. Janie points out in her article that it’s essential for small businesses to become digital — to sell online, promote online, and be comfortable online. She lists some terrific resources (including LiftFund itself) for helping you get there.

Jen Beckmann is new in this issue. Jen, along with her husband, John, owns the Re:Rooted wine bar in Hemisfair. Jen is also a wine expert and educator, and she’s going to write a regular column for us about wine.

And Thea Setterbo, the Director of Communications at Hemisfair, has written about a $50,000 grant Hemisfair has received and used for planting trees. Every month, our park gets better.

And finally, Jane Gennarelli has posted a request for recipes on behalf of our new ‘recipes editor', Patricia Ortiz. Read what we’re looking for here.

Jim Feuerstein is co-editor of LNF Weekly; he also designs and manages the website.