5 Ways to Spend the Holidays that Don’t Involve Lighted Trees and Carols

December 24, 2009 by Lauren Fairbanks

Not everyone celebrates the holidays with a lighted tree, caroling and obnoxious relatives. Sometimes it’s better to cull your own traditions. So spice up that movie and Chinese takeout with some of these fun events — all under $15 — that you can take advantage of later today.

1. Comedy Below Canal @ 92Y Tribeca 9pm ($12) – 12/24 THE TWELFTH NIGHT OF CHANUKAH WITH SEAN PATTON, JANEANE GAROFALO, TODD BARRY, JOE MANDE AND ROB PARAVONIAN. Join us for laughter, merriment and the occasional dreidel joke at this festive yet non-denominational edition of Comedy Below Canal™. Sean Patton (Live at Gotham, Montreal Comedy Festival) hosts with Janeane Garofalo (24, Wet Hot American Summer), Todd Barry (Flight of the Conchords, Comedy Central), Joe Mande (Look At This F*cking Hipster) and musical guest Rob Paravonian.

2. Matzah Bowl @ Brooklyn Bowl 6pm ($12) – 12/24 Brooklyn’s latest and greatest music and entertainment space, Brooklyn Bowl, will be hosting their first annual holiday party and music festival on Thursday, Dec. 24th. The night will feature an eclectic array of well known “Bands of the Tribe” to inspire and entertain the 600 capacity crowd. The show will be 18+ and will feature Bowling Specials, drink specials, surprise musical guests, and an array of menus from local Kosher restaurants, to order from. The two acts that will highlight the evening are Israeli rockers Days Like Months and Pey Dalid, [the later the original band of Hasidic Reggae Star Matisyahu ] who will be having their long awaited CD release party. (via Brooklyn Based)

3. Gifted Flea Market @ Pop Up Space All Day, 12/24 (FREE, unless you buy something) – The Flea is doing its “Gifted” holiday market again this year–in the big ole borough o’ Manhattan. Yes, it’s true, and yes it’s gonna rule. We’re working with Lucky magazine on Gifted: Their editors will do a rotating Curated Corner all month featuring their favorite cool designers and makers, and the mag will help us get the word out in that foreign land across the river, and beyond. So what to expect as we step it up? An alternative to big-box stores for one. An affordable option to high-priced boutiques for another. Way better stuff than blah gift markets–for sure.

4. MadCap Double Feature @ Film Forum 1pm 12/24 ($12) – Get two movies for the price of one when you hit up Film Forum this holiday eve. The Thin Man, William Powell’s Nick Charles and Myrna Loy’s perfect wife Nora take a break from cocktail quaffing to solve a baffling murder, in the picture that wedded the whodunit to screwball comedy. Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. And afterwards, My Man Godfrey, Dizzy heiress Carole Lombard wins the scavenger hunt by producing bum William Powell as a “forgotten man” — then hires him as her butler, joining air-headed mom Alice Brady’s menagerie of acidulous relatives and hangers-on.

5. East Village Radical Jewish Music and Poetry Fest @ Sixth Street Community Synagogue 8pm 12/24 ($15) – Greg Wall’s Later Prophets, Tzadik recording artists, bring a highly literate Jewish sensibility to the forefront of jazz. Wall, has found the perfect partners in his bandmates keyboard wiz Shai Bachar, drummer extraordinaire Aaron Alexander, and the effervescent David Richards on bass. Edom is an avant-rock-klez-jazz ensemble led by Eyal Maoz, hailed by John Zorn as “Ecstatic music for a new generation”. Where Jazz meets New Wave, and echoes of Joy Division are counterposed with John Zorn’s Electric Masada, begins the rocking odyssey of Edom. Jake Marmer, appearing at this gig with Eyal Maoz on the guitar and Jeremy Danneman on sax, merges poetry, music, and performance into such philosophically viral mixtures as existentialist dancehall, talmudic jazz poetry, personalized bop apocalypse.