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Enjoy the lights and local flavor throughout the holiday season.

Celebrate the holiday season at Urban Axes with add-ons like drink packages, catering from local partners, party decorations to make your celebration special, or an axe trophy for the tournament winner. You can even book the entire facility for your own private party.

Traveling is a high-risk activity due to COVID-19. Austin Public Health encourages the community to safely celebrate virtually during the holiday season.

Here's a new exhibition at that Canopy-situated space we love to visit. For "Transmissions," Terra Goolsby and Tammie Rubin have curated a pandemic-inspired show that answers, via a diversity of methods, questions like, "What's performance without the expectations of the traditional shared experiences? How to create intimacy and connection mediated through limited audiences, through projected and virtual transmissions?" And the respondents? Urethra Burns, Veronica Ceci, Antonio Cueto, Chloe Curiel, Michael Anthony García, Jay Roff-Garcia, Ryan Hollaway, Delilah Rose Knuckley, Yuliya Lanina, Brendan Lay, Andrea Muñoz Martinez, Pamela Martinez, Gesel Mason Performance Projects, Teresa Moralez, Jessamyn Leigh Plotts, Alexandra Robinson, LaRissa Rogers, Ivy Roots, and St Celfer. And, listen: The performances are a mix of ICOSA by-appointment time at the venue, Zoom livestreaming and pre-recorded works, ICOSA window performances, and limited-contact open exhibition hours; see the website for times, links, reservations, and more. Recommended: Catch all of the action, or just catch some of it, but don't miss this vivid exploration of WTF-does-performance-mean-in-these-constrained-times?

This is a solo exhibition by Austin-based artist Dave McClinton, representing a continuation of his Black Life series, an ongoing project that aims to illustrate the inner life-cycle of Black people in America. "McClinton’s single edition digital collages focus on the bodies and portraits of Black people embellished with textures of foundational elements, symbols related to trade and status, as well as text from historical documents derived directly from America’s long and lingering history of slavery and white supremacism." Also, this work? Bold, illuminating, confrontational, and aesthetically superlative. Bonus: Ivester's Project Space presents "Olas de Perturbación," new works by Michael Anthony Garcia.

There, across 14 front yards on Bellvue Avenue: A sign of hope! Signs of hope, actually – the pro-Biden/Harris (or, as the artist puts it, Joe/Kamala) artworks of Austin's David Hefner. It's an excellent opportunity for a lift-up-your-spirits drive-by or walking tour: good stuff, visually, even beyond its message. Also a good excuse – go ahead, do it – to check out that Hefner's website, peruse some of the other works he's done.

Brought to you by Chabad of Austin, Judaism UnBoxed is hands-on Jewish discovery and growth, Jewish culinary lessons, and quality family time all in one. Receive holiday baking kit boxes for the Jewish holidays and/or challah baking boxes every month.

Gifting a tree through Treefolks is a fun way to surprise a friend or family member with a present that could last a lifetime, while beautifying and benefiting the community. Donors can opt for preset donation tiers of $30 (10 trees), $75 (25 trees), $150 (50 trees), or an amount of their choice.

The annual Hanukkah Bar pop-up returns to Kitty's with Hanukkah-inspired cocktails like Manischewitz Spritzers, Slivotinis, and Latke Punch, but the regular drink menu will still be available. Did we say latke ... punch? Yes, it's a play on the traditional potato pancake dish, made with potato vodka, apple cider, lemon, ginger liquor, cinnamon, and bitters – available as a single drink or you can get a whole punch bowl for your group. Bonus: A percentage of the proceeds will be donated to JCC of Austin.

This local treasure of a venue, run by those Contemporary Austin folks who also bring us the Jones Center shows Downtown, is all about the outdoors – which is perfect for these trickily navigated times of ours, n'est-ce pas? Recommended: Stop by and breathe in the air, enjoy the lawns and gardens and the many examples of world-class sculpture arrayed across the property, and (as Frankie used to say) r-e-l-a-x.

Meghann Riepenhoff makes her images with an antiquated photographic printing process – no camera, no lens – and thinks of her work as a collaboration with the ocean, the landscape, and precipitation, her dynamic cyanotypes taking on varying shades of blue to give the impression of water in motion, and much of her work is large enough to feel immersive, almost overwhelming.

There are plenty of holiday happenings in Bastrop, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Austin: Take in the sights at the River of Lights, head downtown to shop the Holiday Sidewalk Stroll, take in Elf! The Musical at Bastrop Opera House, or visit Krampus at Scream Hollow's Twisted Christmas.

The holiday season kicks off with Christmas in the Park in Natchitoches and continues through the fireworks on New Year’s Eve around eastern Louisiana.

An interactive walk-through or float-under light experience at the hotel’s iconic Texas-shaped lazy river, which will be surrounded by a mile worth of sparkling lights, complete with stunning views of the downtown Houston skyline.

A park-and-walk display that's free with a donation to Make-A-Wish at the box upon entry.

Mexic-Arte Museum presents an exhibition of selections from the Juan Antonio Sandoval Jr. collection, an array of work that is considered one of the most important Latinx art collections in the United States.

Presented by Toyota of Cedar Park, this drive-through light show has a special bonus of a different holiday movie screening each night.

Join Pepper and Mint on their journey down COTA’s Tunnel Road with this drive-through holiday experience. They are on a mission: to deliver letters to Santa for gifts under the tree! On their way they will meet dancing elves and strolling entertainers as they are transported from Candy Cane Lane to an Enchanted Forest. Additional activities include COTA Karting, Peppermint Plaza with amusements and games, and COTA Zipline.

The Pressed Juicery, that bright bastion of plant-based goodness in the Domain (that we reported about at the start of October), kicks off the new year with a juice fast deal and a sneak peek at the company's graphic redesign, offering half-day juice fasts ($20, for a series of four juices and one shot, that you finish with a plant-based meal) and full-day juice cleanses ($29, which includes six juices per day, with one juice consumed every two hours). What a healthy way for you to ditch the dumpster fire of 2020, citizen!

This is a collaborative exhibition by Adrian Aguilera and Betelhem Makonnen, conceived in the wake and continuing aftermath of the Black Lives Matter uprisings that were reignited in May 2020. "Over a series of masked and socially distanced exchanges, mostly in the natural spaces outside both their studios, Aguilera and Makonnen tried to give form to the overwhelming personal and collective emotions of rage, disappointment, exhaustion, and bruised hope that they experienced in the last six months. Cultivating their continuous curiosity about the relationship between symbols and collective identity, transnationality and diaspora perspectives, as well as history's inextricable hold on the present, Aguilera and Makonnen introduce new multimedia work in conversation with existing work to reflect on this (re)current moment in our country." Recommended: Make an appointment for viewing; check out the gallery's front window for a preview.