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Gift-giving this year, like everything else in 2020, looks a little different than ever before. Instead of exchanging gifts hand to hand or gathering around the Christmas tree to unwrap presents, many people will be mailing packages and meeting in Zoom rooms. A virtual experience is another option, as local businesses offer virtual animal encounters, exercise sessions and workshops. Here are just a few. Nicole Anne Yoga and Animal Reiki Give the gift of a...

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Sticky floors. Body odor. Buzzing eardrums. We miss live music. Luckily, local venues have resumed booking shows for next year – even if owners aren’t sure yet what safety protocols might need to be put in place (most plan to post safety measures online closer to reopening). However it looks, we’ll be hitting up these venues ASAP. Crescent Ballroom This former garage in Central Phoenix will host live shows again on January 25, with a...

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Got dinner plans on Saturday, December 12? You could cook a classic meal with North Italia chef Chris Curtiss from the comfort of your own home for a good cause. During the livestream cooking class, Curtiss will show participants how to prepare a Negroni and charcuterie board, followed by a main course of herb-crusted beef tenderloin with roasted Brussels sprouts, Cambozola polenta and an aged balsamic roasted pear crumble with vanilla mascarpone. Curtiss will send...

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“Walking through a winter wonderland” might be weird this year with everyone wearing masks and staying six feet apart. But driving through a winter wonderland can feel pretty festive. Here is a trio of holiday light shows to illuminate your nights. Holiday Lights at Salt River Fields Expect to spend about 20 minutes slowly cruising the 1.2-mile route at Holiday Lights at Salt River Fields while jamming to holiday tunes on an FM station. The...

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This holiday season, TheaterWorks wants you to walk through a winter wonderland – literally. The Peoria-based performing arts group’s production of A Curiouser Nutcracker takes place in various rooms and spaces audience members meander through, encountering characters and solving puzzles all along the way. A Curiouser Nutcracker combines the Christmas classic The Nutcracker and the fantastical Alice in Wonderland: The Mouse King has taken over Wonderland, cursing it to a perpetual winter. Together, the White...

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The 2020 Socially Distanced Holiday Market on Grand Avenue has everything one could want this season: locally made soaps, jewelry, pet products, ornaments, stationary, yoga accessories… and masks, hand sanitizer, limited admission and people staying 6 feet away from each other. The organizers of the event, local business owners Nancy Hill of printing press Hazel & Violet and Kate Benjamin of cat-centric company Hauspanther, brainstormed all the ways they could make the experience as safe...

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As Thanksgiving approaches, a lot of people are thinking about food. Others are writing songs and singing about it. Here are four audible edible tributes by local bands to whet your appetite for seasonal gluttony. Authority Zero – “Chile con Crudo” This instrumental song’s title roughly translates to “pepper with raw fish,” which sounds like a gross meal, but makes a mean metaphor. Authority Zero’s punk sensibility lends the sonic spice, while the surf twang...

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The dancers in Ballet Arizona pull off impressive pirouettes, and because of the coronavirus pandemic, they’re pulling off proverbial pivots, too. The organization’s virtual season continues with two new livestreams – Inspire and The Nutcracker Suite. Starting November 7 at 7 p.m., Inspire encompasses four new original ballet works by Ballet Arizona choreographers: “Pas de Sept” (company premiere) by August Bournonville, “Pacopepepluto” by Alejandro Cerrudo, “Inner Layers Pas de Deux” by Nayon Iovino and “Goldberg...

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Something strange and special happened in the parking lot at the Arizona State Fairgrounds on Saturday, October 17 – a sound check, for a live band, followed by a friendly reminder for the hundreds of people in attendance to please wear their masks whenever outside their vehicles and maintain social distancing. And then, 1990s alt-rockers Third Eye Blind ascended the steps onto a stage in the middle of the parking lot and played a 90-minute...

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If anything good has come out of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s been the resurgence of drive-in movies. Once a dying venue due to demand for land, drive-in movie theaters have been popping back up amid the pandemic like, well, popcorn. One of the latest is the Movies in Your Car series by CBF Productions, a California-based traveling festival company that’s also putting on the Concerts in Your Car series at the Arizona State Fairgrounds. With...

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2020 hasn’t been the best year for community charity events. Everything that involves large groups of people getting together in person to run, bike or walk has been canceled. But where there’s an Internet connection, there’s a way. Check out these three virtual fitness-minded fundraisers you can participate in from anywhere. Rob Dollar Ride, October 25: In memory of enthusiastic road cyclist Rob Dollar, who was struck and killed by a suspected drunk driver at...

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It will be a second homecoming of sorts when John Fogerty plays at Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale on October 17. Though Fogerty famously sings some songs set in the South (“Proud Mary,” “Green River,” “Born on the Bayou”), the California-born Creedence Clearwater Revival co-founder has some Arizona connections. “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” in Scottsdale: In 2015, Fogerty bought one of the last remaining home sites at the Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale for $1.3...

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Even if you love a good zombie apocalypse movie that starts with a viral outbreak, nobody really wants to catch a virus. Thankfully, the folks behind the annual Phoenix FearCon will ensure we can all be scared s**tless – safely – this Halloween season, as the 9th Annual Phoenix FearCon and Film Festival will be entirely virtual this year. The screamfest starts Friday, October 16 and continues through the end of this horrifying year. Guests...