I heard a mom talking recently about the holiday season as an opportunity to expose her children to the arts. The memory of “A Christmas Carol,” dressed in my red velvet dress, seated next to my mother at the age of eight is still fresh in my mind. Bigger than life, the scary ghost of Christmas Future and the decadently joyous ghost of Christmas Present filled the theatre with his baritone laugh. The same goes for a holiday performance of “Peter and the Wolf” read aloud with a live orchestra. I was hooked on live art performances from the get go, and I have never stopped feeding that need as an audience member or participant. You can never start too soon with your little ones, and this mom I was listening to had some suggestions for how to prepare children for live performances. So I’ll give you some suggestions here, as well as highlights of this holiday season. Hopefully, your children can develop into the future audience for the visual and performing arts in our area.

I’m just beginning this article on a looming deadline with the sad beginnings of a holiday checklist mocking me on the coffee table. My procrastination goes beyond the empty page; come early December, I will most likely have put off the essential shopping trips until, like last year, a forced march ensues at the local mall on Christmas Eve, where I’ll be harassed by hordes of the overly joyful and swept further into a state of deep shame by worn-out moms on their 11th-hour Stocking Stuffer Run and glassy-eyed boyfriends searching for something—anything—in 14k gold.

Tightened corporate control of America’s media has made us an information-starved population without the tools to comprehend world and national events.

Just when you thought it was safe to throw your CD player in the fireplace...it’s back: the holiday season. While the digital revolution has radically changed both the music industry and the way people hear about new artists, it has yet to truly alter the way people buy music gifts during the holidays. An iPod is a pricey proposition for a casual friend and while there are digital accoutrements and accessories available for a reasonable price (armbands, cases, pre-paid gift cards, etc.), they aren’t really the most personal of gift options. Which leaves us with the old format of individual CDs for stocking stuffers and box sets when you’re hoping to add a little heft to the stack of gifts in your music lover’s stash. This year, we’ve moved on from the overly familiar “best sellers” list and instead offer some alternative suggestions for music gift options.

There are people whose homemade, or DIY (Do-It-Yourself), gifts are their Christmastime trademarks. One friend gives a small bottle of homemade vanilla—a whole vanilla bean marinated in vodka —tied with a ribbon and small card. Another woman I know gives a brown paper bag, similarly tied, filled with roasted chestnuts. There’s a man who makes his own Scottish malted ale, a heady, intoxicating brew with an alarmingly high proof. One bottle can get you pretty drunk, and that’s exactly what he gives, with a personalized or holiday themed label in place of a card (think Molson Canadian labels, but not so stupid). Such gifts are perfect because they are completely impersonal, in that they can be given to almost anyone, while also being extremely personal because they are homemade.

As a child, I knew Thanksgiving was near when my father would visit the farmer’s market and retrieve a Hubbard squash, gray-green, gnarly and large as a beach ball. He’d spend what seemed like hours peeling it, cutting it into matchbook-sized pieces.

This year, instead of hula-hoops, lumps of coal and missing front teeth, Santa Claus is hoping to deliver one of the finer things in life to WNYers—Shakespearian drama. Neil Garvey (pictured), a professional actor and Buffalo attorney, is taking his act north and reinventing himself as Santa Bard, a Santa-for-hire, to raise money for Shakespeare in Delaware Park (SDP).

For years, Hospice Buffalo has been working overtime to light up the lives of terminally ill WNYers through its comprehensive medical, emotional and spiritual services. Operating in homes, hospitals, nursing homes, adult care facilities and its own facility (at the Mitchell Campus) in Cheektowaga, Hospice treats nearly 500 people every day. This holiday season, you can light a life and remember a loved one through Hospice Foundation’s 17th annual Light-A-Life holiday appeal.

Just because you don’t have a ton of cash for gifts doesn’t mean that you have to spend hours crafting it’s-the-thought-that-counts holiday keepsakes, or avoiding people on your gift list until after the New Year. Here are ten bargain gifts under $10 (still more than an hour’s worth of minimum wage in New York State) that will deliver more value than you might expect.

Let’s face it. Some people don’t need another thing. Giving a membership to a cultural organization is a retail-free way of supporting someone’s interests, while supporting the interest itself.