‘Twas three weeks before Christmas, and all through Vermont
We were so tired of the same Christmas schlock.
From Griswolds to Grinches to another Christmas Carol,
TV options were stale as a tin popcorn barrel.
And I on the couch, dog in my lap,
Had just settled in for some more Christmas crap,
When what to our wondering ears should appear
But rock-and-roll Santa spreading holiday cheer?
On, Swale! On, Matt Hagen! On, Kat Wright and Brett Hughes!
On, Wizards of Winter ripping metal riffs, too!
Here’s a John Denver tribute, plus Vince Guaraldi.
You love you some Nutcracker? Yeah, we’ve got that, times three.
Away to the box office I flew like a flash,
Tore open my wallet and threw down some cash.
What to do this yuletide? Friends, you’re in luck.
Here’s a sackful of holiday shows that don’t suck.
Christmas Stars
Holiday music extravaganzas
In the canon of TV Christmas specials, star-studded spectaculars are a rich and varied perennial. Singing celebs have long helped make the season bright, from the Rat Pack’s swingin’ Christmases; to Stephen Colbert trading tunes with John Legend, Feist and Toby Keith; to Pee-wee Herman making merry at his Playhouse with Charo, Frankie Avalon and k.d. lang.
The Vermont music scene has its own equivalents. Backed by an all-star collection of locals, musical polymath Matt Hagen unveils his new original holiday album, Matt Hagen’s Christmas Bath, with a show at Nectar’s in Burlington on Wednesday, December 18. Read more next week about that record, which includes contributions from singer Grace Potter, Phish drummer Jon Fishman and rocker James Kochalka.
Among the longer-running local holiday showcases is A Very Hairy Swalemess, hosted by local art-rock band Swale since 2017. The quartet performs Christmas tunes both classic and obscure and serves as the backing band for the likes of Craig Mitchell and Francesca Blanchard. (It ain’t Christmas in Burlington until Ryan Ober and Jason Cooley do Run-D.M.C.’s “Christmas in Hollis.”) This year’s Swalemess hits on Sunday, December 22, at the Light Club Lamp Shop in Burlington.
A fresh tradition may be born unto the Capital City this season. On Saturday, December 7, the Montpelier Performing Arts Hub hosts the Slaphappy Santa Christmas Spectacular. The benefit for the newly opened community venue features a 14-piece big band, led by trumpeter and bandleader Brian Boyes, playing blues, swing and rock renditions of holiday favorites.
If all that harking and heralding has you jonesing to join the chorus, don’t miss the Sweetback Sisters Country Christmas Sing-Along Spectacular at the Stone Church in Brattleboro on Friday, December 20. Led by Sweetback Sisters vocalist Zara Bode, the show aims to capture the magic of classic TV Christmas specials with a mix of carols, offbeat original music and funny trivia.
Blue Christmas
Sad music for happy holidays
While Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year for some, midwinter can be bleak for others. If you’re away from family, unhappily single or otherwise down at the holidays, your eggnog may be spiked with melancholy — and whiskey. Of course, that all makes for great songwriting fodder, and there’s a whole slumped branch of Christmas music dedicated to sad tidings and wistful nostalgia.
In Vermont, the foremost purveyors of glistening-eyed holiday music are Kat Wright and Brett Hughes. For more than a decade, the Kat & Brett Holiday Show has broadened the seasonal options with sad and sweet Christmas songs, including a few originals. This year, backed by Swale and Rough Francis bassist Tyler Bolles and multi-instrumentalist Will Seeders, Wright and Hughes play 10 intimate holiday shows all over the state. Their run, which kicked off last weekend in Bennington and includes stops in Burlington, Middlebury and Waitsfield, wraps up at the Richmond Free Library on Saturday, December 21.
Maine singer-songwriter and artist Dan Blakeslee should probably have honorary Vermonter status, given how often he plays here. (Plus, he did the art for the Alchemist’s Heady Topper and Focal Banger beer cans.) Blakeslee has a thing for holidays — his Halloween shows always draw a crowd — and has been writing Christmas songs for nearly two decades. Hear his tunes, which mix childlike whimsy (“To Be an Elf”) with more somber reflections (“The Somerville Lights”), at A Dan Blakeslee Christmas at Radio Bean in Burlington on Tuesday, December 10.
Twisted Christmas
What, you wanted socks?
Sure, you can spend your holidays watching Hallmark movies and listening to Mariah Carey. But for braver souls — or damaged ones — there’s another side of Christmas that’s darker, weirder and hornier.
The Wizards of Winter are an 11-piece rock ensemble composed of former members of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Alice Cooper, Blue Oyster Cult and Def Leppard. As you might infer from the lineup, the band’s take on Christmas music is decidedly glam metal. The Wizards hit the Barre Opera House on Friday, December 13, performing The Christmas Dream, an original rock opera about searching for the meaning of Christmas. (Spoiler: The meaning of Christmas is finger-tapping guitar solos and octave riffs.)
If heavy metal isn’t heavy enough for your holidays, hit up the fourth annual Hardcore Holiday Show at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge in South Burlington, also on Friday the 13th. A benefit for Feeding Chittenden, the showcase features a sleigh-full of local and regional hardcore bands, including Vermont’s Old North End, Dead Solace, Challenger and Outnumbered, plus western Massachusetts act Concrete Ties.
For an entirely different kind of heavy metal, try TubaChristmas, a gathering of local tuba, euphonium and sousaphone players on Saturday, December 21. The celebration of yuletide cheer and cumbersome instruments has been running in cities around the world for more than a half-century. In Burlington, players will convene for rehearsal at the Fletcher Free Library at 10 a.m. before marching up the Church Street Marketplace playing holiday favorites at 1 p.m.
If you want to ditch your company Christmas party, we don’t blame you. Instead, check out the Annual VCC Holidaygasm Party, Gift Swap & Open Mic on Wednesday, December 18, at Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington. Essentially a holiday party for the local comedy scene, the show is part improv jam and part standup open mic, with a Yankee gift swap thrown in for good measure. It sounds like a blast, but be warned: There’s a good chance everyone involved will end up on the naughty list.
A Swinging Holiday
These are a few of our favorite things
From Ella and Louis to Frank and Bing to John Coltrane, some of the most enduring Christmas music comes from the jazz world. Those wishing to hear holiday classics scatted and swung must have been good this year: Vermont’s jazz scene is bursting with holiday cheer in December.
Audrey Bernstein has long reigned as one of Vermont’s preeminent jazz vocalists. But she’s taken a hiatus from performing the past few years, focusing instead on teaching the next generation of local jazz singers. The sultry chanteuse, whose voice the Los Angeles Times likened to “cognac over ice,” makes her return to the stage on Friday, December 13, performing a Lane Series holiday program at the University of Vermont Recital Hall, backed by a crew of ace players including Evan Allen, Geoff Kim, Jeremy Hill, Patricia Julien and Dan Ryan. Call it a Christmas miracle.
Bernstein isn’t the only local hepcat swinging in the holiday season. The 18-piece Brian McCarthy Jazz Orchestra plays a trio of holiday shows this month, on Friday, December 6, at Town Hall Theater in Middlebury; Saturday, December 7, at Vermont State University in Johnson; and Sunday, December 8, at Vermont State University in Lyndon. Ray Vega, renowned trumpeter and host of Vermont Public’s “Friday Night Jazz,” is the featured guest.
Canadian vocalist and trumpeter Bria Skonberg scored Spotify fame with her slinky cover of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” in 2017. She’ll perform that tune and other jazzed-up classics at her “Jingle Bell Swing” holiday concert at Middlebury College’s Mahaney Arts Center on Wednesday, December 4.
Visions of Sugarplums
Nutcrackers galore!
Whether you’re catching It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve, caroling through the snow or watching Uncle John get blind drunk on mulled wine, Christmas is nothing without traditions. Among the season’s most cherished annual rites is The Nutcracker, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet set in a child’s imagination on Christmas Eve. Three local theater and dance companies mount the show this month.
At the Flynn in Burlington, the Vermont Ballet Theater and School presents Vermont’s Own Nutcracker at four performances on Saturday and Sunday, December 21 and 22.
That same weekend at the Barre Opera House, Moving Light Dance offers a local spin on the show with Green Mountain Nutcracker. A cast of 65 professional and community dancers performs this rendition set in Vermont in the 1970s.
For a more traditional interpretation of the show, don’t miss the Dance Factory at Springfield High School on Saturday and Sunday, December 14 and 15, the longest-running local production of The Nutcracker in Vermont.
Bah, Humbug
Keeping holiday traditions fresh
If you had to spend Christmas on a desert island with only one Christmas album, what would it be? Probably Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas, right? The soundtrack to the 1965 TV special may be the most universally beloved holiday standard, which could explain why Spruce Peak Arts in Stowe is hosting a nearly two-week run of A Charlie Brown Christmas Live in Concert. Running from Thursday, December 12, to Christmas Eve, the live-action version features the whole “Peanuts” gang, Guaraldi’s iconic score and one scraggly tree.
If you could have two Christmas albums on that desert island, your second choice might well be a John Denver offering, with or without the Muppets. In that case, the John Denver Christmas Concert with Chris Collins and Boulder Canyon, at the Barre Opera House on Saturday, December 14, is for you. Despite Collins’ resemblance to the late bespectacled singer, the show is meant not as an impersonation but as a tribute to Denver’s beloved Christmas concerts and specials.
Finally, there is no greater Christmas tale than A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella has been adapted countless times to stage and screen, from the Albert Finney-led musical Scrooge to Bill Murray’s comedy Scrooged. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim and a cadre of spirits is so canonical, it’s easy to overlook how powerful and spooky the original is. In what’s become an indispensable annual tradition, Yankee storyteller Willem Lange performs A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story, a live reading of Dickens’ classic, at Lost Nation Theater in Montpelier on Sunday, December 15, with a live stream available through Tuesday, December 31. No humbugs allowed.
Disclosure: Tyler Bolles is the author’s brother.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Beyond Scrooge | Yule be glad you caught these Vermont holiday shows that don’t suck”
This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2024.
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