Welcome back to The Big To-Do. Meteorological winter arrived this week and announced its presence with authority, as Nuke LaLoosh would say, but the weekend forecast calls for less testing temperatures. (If you need a refresher on the polar vortex, the Globe’s Ken Mahan has your back.) Productions of “The Nutcracker” and “A Christmas Carol” are thick on the ground, and if you’re in shopping mode, you won’t get far this weekend without stumbling over a holiday market. And it’s a good time to be a couch potato, with “all sorts of new movies and TV shows” streaming and the Globe’s Matt Juul spotlighting the best options, including the George Clooney and Adam Sandler comedy-drama “Jay Kelly” — yes, already. Not your speed? Read on for plenty of other options.

Movies

Actor George C. Scott portrays Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol," which aired on CBS on Dec. 17, 1985. AP PHOTO

Outdoing the leading man in “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” is tough, but flesh-and-blood versions of Ebenezer Scrooge keep the Globe’s Odie Henderson watching. He rounds up “five other Scrooges worth noting” — among them Alastair Sim in the 1951 “A Christmas Carol” and “The Muppet Christmas Carol” (1992) star Michael Caine — as well as “one that deserves the biggest ‘Bah! Humbug!’”

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit” was “a perfect storm of creativity and talent,” says Gary K. Wolf. The Boston author, now 84, recently regained the rights to the characters from his 1981 novel “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?” and the 1988 film adaptation. “I’ve talked to a lot of writers who tried to do this and failed,” he says in an interview with Globe correspondent James Sullivan. “None of that happened to me.”

TV & Streaming

Lena Headey as Fiona Nolan in "The Abandons." COURTESY OF NETFLIX/COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025

“The Abandons,” starring Lena Headey and Gillian Anderson, “offers a juicy story with two compelling antagonists.” As rival matriarchs on the 19th-century frontier, writes Globe TV critic Chris Vognar, they’re part of “a long history of putting female protagonists high in the saddle, on big screen and small.” Consider “Deadwood” and this year’s “American Primeval,” but also films that center “the truly outsize (and dangerous) Western heroines.”

The Tim Robinson vehicle “The Chair Company” “unfolds as a bent parody of the conspiracy thriller. It also happens to work pretty well as an example of what it skewers.” The Ethan Hawke series “The Lowdown” and the Yorgos Lanthimos film “Bugonia” are among the “recent conspiracy stories [that] go so far down the rabbit hole that they eventually come out on the other side,” Vognar writes. “Here the theory assemblers are actually onto something.”

Alexandria Stapleton’s documentary series “Sean Combs: The Reckoning” is “a harrowing look at Combs’s fall from grace and various abuse allegations.” Over four episodes, it “also revisits the murders of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, known better as Biggie Smalls, renewing speculation over whether Combs was involved,” writes the Globe’s Matt Juul.

The Big Day

Boston newlyweds Rachel Dillon and Jackson Tuck married at Timber Hill Farm in Gilford, N.H. LINDSEY TOPHAM

The Globe’s weddings column, The Big Day, tells stories of how couples found each other, fell in love, and said “I do.” Ariel Bornstein and Ryan Hansen married in Boston in September, six years after Ariel tried and failed to relegate Ryan to the friend zone. “I had to come back with my tail between my legs,” she says of her change of heart. “It was a jump, but a good jump,” Ryan tells Globe correspondent Rachel Kim Raczka.

To apply to be featured, recently married and engaged couples (vow renewals and commitment ceremonies, too!) with ties to New England can click here for the application form.

Music

Boston Camerata, led by Anne Azéma (center), reliably presents two holiday music programs each year. PROVIDED

December is high season for “group singing of all kinds.” Whether you want to “take in some festive performances — or even participate in some yourself,” the Globe’s A.Z. Madonna has some great ideas. Handel’s “Messiah” is an option all over town, alongside “several centuries’ worth of carols, hymns, and instrumentals” from Boston Camerata and Lorelei Ensemble’s take on Scott Ordway’s “ethereal and wintery” “North Woods.”

The legendary jazz bassist Ron Carter and his New Foursight quartet play Cambridge this weekend. “I look forward to going to work every night,” the 88-year-old tells Chris Vognar. They chat about Carter’s time playing with Miles Davis, his appearance on the A Tribe Called Quest song “Verses from the Abstract,” and why he calls his current quartet his “crown jewel” band.

Forty years ago, the first Boston Against AIDS gala brought together Dionne Warwick, Cyndi Lauper, and high-profile politics and sports figures. “It was one of the first celebrity events of its kind in the country, at a time when the general public — and leading policy makers, beginning with the president — were deeply reluctant to talk about” the brewing crisis. Globe correspondent James Sullivan looks back at a watershed event.

What’s a “cassingle”? The “portmanteau of ‘cassette’ and ‘single’” is back as an outlet for music and spoken-word performances, recorded in a booth at Moon Base One in downtown Salem. “It’s such a unique experience, and a unique keepsake that you can have from your visit to Salem,” says Ali Lipman of MOON, which runs the arts space. Artists receive an mp3, too, Globe correspondent Victoria Wasylak writes for Sound Check.

The Dream Syndicate visits Somerville next week, playing recent music followed by its sophomore album, “Medicine Show” (1984). After a splashy debut, it was “just a big, cathartic explosion of something else,” frontman Steve Wynn tells Globe correspondent Stuart Munro. The goal now is “to replicate a show we might have done after the record came out — to be the band that went on tour and play with that kind of bold confidence.”

Theater

From left: Ryan Landry as Mrs. Leaveit and Thain Bertin as Sweeney in "Sweeney Claus." MICHAEL VON REDLICH

If it’s the holiday season, Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans are cooking up “inspired mayhem.” In “Sweeney Claus: The Demon Father of Sleet Street,” Landry “amps up the lunacy,” writes Globe theater critic Don Aucoin. “Landry’s modus operandi is to hitch the melodies of musical-theater classics to his own deranged lyrics, a combination of homage and desecration. It creates a fun game of Name That Musical.”

“I love talking animals,” says Matthew Woods of the theater company imaginary beasts. In “The Bremen Town Musicians (A Prop-Trunk Pantomime),” the troupe brings “the beloved English musical hall tradition” to local stages. “We try to tell the story from the children’s perspective, but we also include some political references and double entendres for the grown-ups,” he tells Globe correspondent Terry Byrne.

Midwinter Revels master of ceremonies David Coffin says he’s “still growing up.” The concertina and recorder player branched out into sea chanteys during the pandemic. “Everything I do is as interactive as possible because that’s what keeps it fresh,” this week’s Working Artist tells Globe correspondent Cate McQuaid. “You look at who’s in front of you and you go from there.” “A Scandinavian Story for Christmas” opens Dec. 12.

First a children’s book, then a movie, “Wonder” is now a musical coming to the ART. It tells the story of a boy born with craniofacial difference, “switching perspectives from character to character every so often to put the reader in the headspace of the children at the heart of the story.” Says playwright Sarah Ruhl, “I think of this book as an empathy machine.” Globe correspondent Marc Hirsh has a preview.

Museums & Visual Art

The artist Alma Allen in Mexico City, Nov. 17, 2025. Allen, 55, will exhibit nearly 30 sculptures at the US pavilion of the 2026 Venice Biennale starting in May. JAKE NAUGHTON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

For “the most important contemporary art event in the world,” the Venice Biennale, the US has tapped sculptor Alma Allen. He’s “not a bold pick,” Globe art critic Murray Whyte writes. “But it’s no small thing that Allen — someone real, and legitimate — will be in Venice, holding space in the global cultural community. It means that, amid all the carnage of an administration hostile both to art and international standing, this gesture matters.”

The images in “Of Elephants and Men: India’s Unique Relationship, Photographs by Annette Bonnier” capture the “wondrousness” of the animals. “Precisely because elephants are so visually arresting, and thus draw the viewer’s attention, it’s easy to miss how cannily Bonnier can use space,” the Globe’s Mark Feeney writes. At Cambridge’s BRIDGE Gallery through Dec. 27.

Born in the depths of the pandemic, “Solstice,” at Mount Auburn Cemetery, “is fast becoming a holiday tradition.” For this year’s light-and-sound installation, James Sullivan reports, MASARY Studios added “an ambient symphony that showcases some of the cemetery’s oldest inhabitants — its majestic collection of trees.” The show aims “to curate a moment of reflection, beauty, meaning, and quiet,” says the cemetery’s Matthew Stephens.

Books

Lisette Model, "Art Taylor, New York Jazz Festival, Randall’s Island Stadium, New York City," August 23-24, 1957.© LISETTE MODEL FOUNDATION, COURTESY OF EAKINS PRESS FOUNDATION/NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA

The photographs in “Lisette Model: The Jazz Pictures,” by Harvard Art Museums curator Audrey Sands, are “a revelation.” The “exceedingly handsome piece of bookmaking,” in the words of Mark Feeney, is one of five memorable new volumes of photography that explore topics as wide-ranging as New York City and Christmas.

Real estate madness informs “Best Offer Wins,” a thriller by Marisa Kashino set in and around Washington, DC. “Since so many of us are crazy about real estate, browsing Zillow and visiting open houses for fun ... Margo’s laser focus doesn’t seem so off at first,” writes Globe reviewer Marion Winik. But things soon take a turn: “How could a funny, self-deprecating dog lover with a name like Margo be a cold-blooded killer?”

Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s “House of Day, House of Night” “should not be missed.” The “constellation novel” — the author’s term for “a highly episodic structure that feels like a story collection” — is “immensely rewarding once the stars start to align,” writes Globe reviewer Cory Oldweiler. Originally published in the US in 2003, it’s now available in a “substantially revised translation” from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Today's newsletter was written by Marie Morris and produced by the Globe Living/Arts staff. Marie Morris can be reached at marie.morris@globe.com. Thanks for reading.

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