What do you typically do to get into the holiday spirit? Isn’t it time for a break? Set aside the home decorations and holiday food preparation for a moment and get out and do some fun activities with the family!

One of the favorite holiday traditions is illuminating the neighborhood with lights! Sure, everyone can deck out their homes to look like Clark Griswold’s house from the famous holiday movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, but did you know that several parks also have holiday light displays with over 500,000 lights? Vasona Park has their annual “Fantasy of Lights” and Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has their “Holiday Lights Extravaganza.”

Have you ever gone on a sleigh and horse drawn carriage ride? Seems like a magical experience like the episode from Sex And The City where Carrie and Alexandr Petrovsky soar through the snow in Central Park! Why not make it a reality? Although it could be a problem if you don’t live in a climate with snow, there’s always the horse drawn carriage minus the sleigh!

For those who like culture and the arts, enjoy the famed Nutcracker Ballet, watch the symphony orchestra featuring your favorite holiday classics, or go see a wintry theater arts performance.

Find time to relax and enjoy yourself this festive holiday season!

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The holidays are here and it’s almost impossible to escape the inevitable shopping frenzy.

If you’d like to avoid the suffocation of hectic malls and prevent parking headaches…here are some very interesting shopping alternatives!

Did you know that during the holidays, the amount of trash Americans throw away goes up by 1 million tons a week? This year, you can create your very own special one-of-a-kind gift (which makes the present even more meaningful!) from recycled materials at The Crissy Field Center in San Francisco, CA. You can make something for everyone on your list: container gardens, sno-globes, digital greeting cards, and much more at the Do-It-Yourself Gift Making Extravaganza.

For those who prefer to purchase something classic, you might want to check out a place like historic Georgetown, CO. The town’s Christmas Market is a charming outdoor European marketplace with handcrafted gifts with beautiful and unique shops with intricate ornaments and decorations, Victorian items for the home, art, wine, rare books, jewelry, clothing, antiques, gifts, and award-winning food vendors (for those intense shoppers who work up an appetite while running around). The Heart of Downtown Washington DC also offers an open air Downtown Holiday Market with local artisans selling arts, crafts, textiles, photography, pottery, clothing, and high quality gift items. They’ve got live entertainment and Christmas carolers too!

The holidays are always a great time to help those in need. If you’re able to share your generosity, you can contribute to gift drives for organizations like The Home for Little Wanderers, Knight Children’s Center in Boston, MA or even adopt a pet to give orphaned critters a happy home for the holidays!

Good luck holiday shoppers!

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Museums and galleries are everywhere with different collections spanning from historical paintings, video installation, sculptures, photography, handicrafts, to ancient artifacts. But how do people outside of the art community discover the obscure and fascinating exhibitions out there? Without a doubt, these aren’t the typical things you expect to find on display:

Zvents’ Eric Odland and Grace Lin happened to be a part of an audience at the San Francisco Exploratorium and captured a labor-intensive construction made of wooden pieces by Scottish artist Aeneas Wilder. The impressive construction itself is an art form, as is the apparent destruction!

Jelly Belly Presents “Candy Unwrapped,” an interactive exhibit, which explores the science of candy at the Cranbrook Art Museum and Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills, Missouri. The cool thing is that visitors can look, smell and taste their way through exhibits to discover the biology, chemistry, psychology, and artistry behind the candy.

Then there’s MONA’s Downtown and Hollywood Neon Cruise where visitors can jump on board the top deck of a convertible British bus on a guided tour at night to experience the urban electric jungle of Los Angeles. Have you ever wanted to know how these neon signs and classic movie marquees came about?

Who knew!? So, why not forgo the standard art fare? These are the fun and unique things that you can actually be a part of!

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As this month’s issue of WIRED magazine describes, we live in a culture where we “Make it, tweak it, mod it, hack it: This is the age of DIY.” The way to identify something as being uniquely our own is to personalize it: “If you want something done right, then do-it-yourself!”

In our consumer culture, mass production enables us to have everything we need. Yet, how can we avoid being generic? When given the chance why not experiment with your own creativity and express your individualism? Sure, it may be a gamble whether or not the project will be a success, yet the cool thing playing with your own ideas and customizing your creations to suit your exact needs and interests. Discover how to invent, develop, and produce something meaningful that you can share with your friends or family.

There are all sorts of opportunities to DIY:

Whether you are interested in designing and adorning yourself with your own intricate jewelry, there’s a Chainmaille - Byzantine Bracelet and Earrings Class in Cambridge, MA using ancient techniques for working with sterling silver. For the literati, explore Bookbinding: The Art of the Handmade Book in Brockton, MA to develop techniques to artfully preserve your writing.

Perhaps you’ve always wanted to stand behind a real bar and play bartender? You can entertain your friends during Nightlife Sundays and Mondays at Excelsior’s Muddling Bar in Boston, MA and get behind Excelsior’s do-it-yourself cocktail bar to make muddled cocktails with ingredients like mint, basil, watermelon, Muscat grapes, lychee, berries, and jalapeño, along with fruit purées and syrups, perfect for pairing with gin, vodka, or light rum. Or if you are in Detroit, MI and want to take the entertainment level up a notch, why not try the Pole or Lap Dancing Workshop and seriously DIY?

Of course, for the more reserved crowd who has an interest in designing and building houses, bridges or airplanes, try Engineer It! in Portland, OR. This workshop allows you to experiment with your own innovative designs and test them.

Search Zvents for crafts, electronics, music, design, and other things you can DIY and see what happens!

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