People prefer to ignore the seedy underbelly of Christmas, but to be honest, the holiday is inherently creepy. Think about it: a fat, old guy breaks into your house and leaves you presents that he mysteriously knows you want. We bring trees inside of our houses and decorate them with…
Years ago, in what she calls a moment of brilliance or insanity, Karen Sugar decided to start an international development organization for women. Sugar began by looking for a location where women had the most critical need for empowerment, but she soon realized that the location wasn’t as important as…
Krampus, the horned anti-Santa of Alpine folklore, is said to handle the naughty children Santa leaves behind by throwing them in his sack and carrying them off to some unimaginably hellish place. Denver’s first Krampus Nacht transformed the Oriental Theater into that den of iniquity on Saturday night, and Scott…
If I could have one and only one social network from any time in the history of the Internet, I would choose Twitter. Keep in mind, I’m saying this as a person who thought about writing a book about how awesome MySpace was in its heyday of the early 2000s…
Have a Die Hard Christmas! Last week Amanda Moutinho unwrapped her list of the Five Least Christmas-y Christmas Movies. And one of her favorites, Die Hard, will be showing not once but twice this week, in a special gift to this city’s fans of merry mayhem. Keep reading for the…
“We couldn’t believe how much emphasis there was on ski jumping from the beginning: It was really the extreme sport of its day,” says historian Caryn Boddie. She and her husband, Peter Boddie, wrote the book Lost Ski Areas of Colorado’s Front Range and Northern Mountains, and they’ll be sharing…
Though the First Friday of December traditionally collides with the Parade of Lights, art-lovers still flocked to Santa Fe Drive, despite interfering downtown gridlock. Read on to see photographer Danielle Lirette’s images from the art district’s monthly gallery stroll. See also: Laura Goldhamer Brings Stop Motion to Gregory Alan Isakov…
“I’ve always been fascinated with antiques,” says Tara Dover. “In my early twenties I got into vintage clothing, and ever since then both my life and style have never been the same.” And over the past few years, her fascination has really taken off, with first online sales of La…
Geeks have a tendency to self-segregate into little geeky ghettos — Star Wars fans over here, Lord of the Rings devotees over there — and that makes it really easy to miss out on some cool shit. If you’re suffering from the effects of this self-imposed exile and would like…
You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. “Mazes are a metaphor for life — you run into a dead…
If you’re looking for Old World charm and a really big pretzel, the Christkindl Market is open for business in Skyline Park daily through December 23, with vendors, twinkling lights and a beer garden. Photographer Ken Hamblin brought back these images and more from the miniature German Christmas village. See…
Same-sex marriage was the hot topic of the summer, with Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall following in the four-decade-old footsteps of her predecessor Clela Rorex, who’d issued the first same-sex marriage licenses in the country back in the mid-’70s. But with the U.S. Supreme Court’s deliberate inaction this…
With Christmas just weeks away, the calendar is filling up with obligations. But you deserve some fun, too. So take care of some of those shopping obligations while drinking beer tonight, and then load your midweek schedule with free entertainment that includes classic movies and great local comedy. For more…
Ladies and gents alike flashed a little flesh on Saturday at the annual Santa Speedo Dash, a Highlands Square holiday tradition that involves skivvies-and-Santa-hat-clad lunatics running down the street in the dead of December. But it’s all for a good cause — raising money for Life is Better Rescue, a…
People marking a 40th birthday are usually dealing with wider hips, wrinkles and gray hair. But there’s one gal who still looks puuuurfect: Hello Kitty. The cartoon powerhouse first hit the streets of Japan in 1974. Now she’s celebrating her birthday in style with a new book called Hello Kitty,…
Fashion blogger Kelly Heneberry has gone from changing her clothes five times a day as a little girl to sharing her take on the Denver lifestyle and fashion on her blog, Love’s the Journey. Fresh from her recent appearance on the Meredith Vieira Show, Heneberry took a break from blogging…
Plenty of Denver galleries will kick off December with shows of small and affordable art for the holidays. But there’s much more to see this First Friday, and it’s a good night to venture from the downtown area, where the Parade of Lights will create gridlock and parking nightmares, and…
Christmas is just twenty days away, and if you haven’t yet been bombarded by the Pentatonix holiday album in your office, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to see Kris Kringle this weekend. You can even become Santa yourself — or at least get in the bag. Here are the four…
Who cares how cold it’s getting because this first weekend of December is going to be crazy. There’s almost too much to see and do, so you’re going to have to head over to the Westword calendar to absorb all of it. From manly crafts and football talk to derby…
In the world of stop motion, sometimes you have to embrace mistakes. Denver artist/musician Laura Goldhamer is used to doing just that, most recently when she created the video for Gregory Alan Isakov’s “Amsterdam.” One of the props was a large piece of glass with-cotton ball clouds to serve as…
Colfax Avenue’s sordid and fascinating history provides a road map for the evolution of the metro area. The longest uninterrupted main street in the United States, Colfax coasts from Aurora to Golden with chunks of Denver and Lakewood in between, providing an excellent cross-section of Colorado commerce, culture and community…
It’s okay to be a Scrooge when it comes to theater. If you want a real, grown-up show that isn’t full of fluff and wrapped up in a bow, you can find plenty of performances on local stages that will make you think — even in December. Here are four…
