Lifebeat
Holiday cheer abounds this weekend
12/23/2006 01:00 AM EST
Holiday cheer abounds this weekend as Hanukkah ends today and Christmas Eve arrives tomorrow.
Astors’ Beechwood — the mansion where costumed actors pretend to be living in the era of the Mrs. Astor, queen of American society — holds Victorian Christmas tours today at 11 a.m., noon, and 2 and 3 p.m. 580 Bellevue Ave., Newport. Admission is $18; youth 6 to 17 $8; family (two adults, two to four children) $45, children 5 and younger free. Reservations are encouraged. Call (401) 846-3772 or go to www.astorsbeechwood.com.
Meanwhile, three of the famed Newport Mansions — The Breakers, 44 Ochre Point Ave., and The Elms and Marble House, both on Bellevue Avenue — are decorated for the season with thousands of poinsettias, fresh flowers, evergreens, trees, wreaths and 19th-century ornaments. The Breakers opens at 9 a.m. today and tomorrow, the other two at 10 a.m., and all three close at 5 p.m., with the last tour admission at 4 p.m. Tickets are $10, or $4 for children 6 to 17, at The Elms and Marble House; at The Breakers they’re $15, with combination tickets available. Call (401) 847-1000 or go to www.newportmansions.org.
Get some old-fashioned Christmas spirit tomorrow night when the Slatersville Congregational Church lights up the Village Green in the historic mill village with hundreds of candlelit luminaria — paper bags weighted with sand and lit by candles inside. The effect is a magical transformation of the green, with its classic white-steepled church at one end and a circle of 1800s houses around it.
The luminaria are lit at about 7:30 p.m. and remain until midnight or until weather snuffs them. For more information, call (401) 769-2773.
What the heck are you gonna listen to on Christmas Eve? Klezmer, of course!
Fishel Bresler’s Klezmer Hasidic Ensemble plays the real thing Sunday at 7:30 at Congregation Ohawe Shalom Coffee House, 671 East Ave., Pawtucket. Admission is $10 adults, $7 for children. Call (401) 273-9814.
The heartwarming sort is Trinity Rep’s annual production of A Christmas Carol, at 201 Washington St., Providence, today at 11 a.m. and 2, 5 and 8 p.m., and tomorrow at 11 a.m. and 2 and 5 p.m. Tickets to new artistic director Curt Columbus’ vision of the show based on the Dickens classic are $28 to $60, or $14 to $30 for ages 2 to 12. Call (401) 351-4242 or go to www.trinityrep.com.
A much darker view of the season comes in The SantaLand Diaries and Season’s Greetings, at the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange St., Pawtucket. This weekend is the last chance to see the show, which re-creates two of David Sedaris’ bitingly comic monologues, one based on his experiences as an elf at Macy’s, the other a mock Christmas video from a woman with serious issues. Tickets are $19 to $31; shows today and tomorrow at 2 p.m. still had tickets remaining at press time. Call (401) 723-4266, or go to www.arttixri.com or www.gammtheatre.org.
There’s more to the Fall River Historical Society than its big Lizzie Borden exhibit. The 1843 granite Greek Revival mansion that houses the society is decorated for the holiday and is hosting a Victorian Holiday Open House complete with music and other festivities today from 1 to 5 p.m. and tomorrow from 9 a.m. to noon. The Historical Society is at 451 Rock St., Fall River, and admission is $6, $4 for children 6 to14, children 5 and younger free. Call (508) 679-1071.
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