Things to Do in Vancouver This Weekend: Dec. 21, 2017

Merry Solstice, Happy Christmas, Cheery Yule, and all the holiday well wishes for a weekend of relaxation, festivities, feasting, and warmth! Whether you’re down for light displays, a dinner cruise, drag, comedy, plays, or music, there is a lot going on to keep you entertained this weekend in Vancouver.

Listed in order of end date – make sure to double-check holiday hours for each event before making your plans.

Little Dickens: The Daisy Theatre
Where: The Cultch
What: An adult-only marionette retelling of A Christmas Carol.
Runs until: Friday December 22, 2017

Graham Clark’s Quiz Show
Where: The Fox Cabaret
What: A comedy show that cherry picks the best segments of game shows, plus a few new favourites, and presents them all in one bizarre event. Comedians play the contestants with prizes for the audience.
One night: Friday December 22, 2017

The Funk Hunters
Where: The Commodore
What: A DJ duo inspired by classic funk and hip hop with electronic dance music.
One night: Friday December 22, 2017

Vancouver Canucks vs. St. Louis Blues
Where: Rogers Arena
What: It’s a hockey game. Go cheer, drink some beer maybe, and bring the family.
One night: Friday December 22, 2017

Mark Farina
Where: The Imperial
What: A night of house music.
One night: Friday December 22, 2017

Christmas Queen 4- Secret Santa
Where: Vancouver Improv Centre
What: The previous three editions of Christmas Queen saw HRM (Her Royal Meanness) hilariously thwarted in her attempts to ruin Christmas. This year is no exception. Confusion and hijinks ensue when the Queen and Santa exchange bodies in a Freaky Friday-style magical sleight-of-hand. What happens to the Workshop’s Toy Factory with The Queen as Santa in charge? Will there be presents? Will everyone receive a lump of coal? How will the experience of inhabiting the Queen’s body affect Santa? Will he learn something about himself and her that will change Christmas forever?
Runs until: Saturday December 23, 2017

Christmas Queen Drag Race
Where: Vancouver Improv Centre
What: What happens when two queens get together? A lot of racy, outrageous hilarity and wicked wit. Join Vancouver TheatreSports’ very own Christmas Queen with her special guest co-host, drag star The Unstoppable Conni Smudge for five very naughty (but nice) late-late night holiday season shows.
Runs until: Saturday December 23, 2017

Carol Ships Harbour Cruises
Where: Vancouver Harbour
What:Each December the boats of Vancouver are decorated with holiday lights. Get right on the water for a dinner tour and get a unique view of the coast, the mountains, and the coastline’s holiday spirit.
Runs until: Saturday December 23, 2017

Rebels on Pointe
Where: VanCity Theatre
What: If you’ve seen one Nutcracker too many, this might be the film to restore your love of ballet. Their first show was on September 9, 1974, at a second-story loft on 14th street, in the heart of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Since then, all-male drag troupe Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo have been delighting audiences around the world, performing, among other things, Swan Lake as Tchaikovsky never imagined it in his famously feverish dreams.
Runs until: Saturday December 23, 2017

Early Music Vancouver presents Festive Cantatas: Vivaldi’s Gloria and Magnificat
Where: Chan Centre for Performing Arts
What: Enjoy Vivaldi’s sacred vocal works as they were originally heard: performed entirely by women. Many of Vivaldi’s iconic masterpieces, now sung by mixed voice choirs, were written for an all-female ensemble. Beloved British violinist Monica Huggett will lead a distinguished lineup of female period instrumentalists and vocalists in this celebratory programme.
One night: Saturday December 23, 2017

Dundrave Christmas Wassail & Bonfire
Where: Dundrave Beach
What: Directly quoiting the website: “This night, crowned by a bonfire presented as it has for generations by the District of West Vancouver, is the ultimate night in the festival’s season. We turn our faces together to the sunset, knowing that darkness will not have the last word even as the nights grow longest because loving friendship endures; we stand together at Dundarave Beach to make sure no one is left out and alone in the cold.” Sounds like fun.
One night: Saturday December 23, 2017

Annual Christmas Sweater Party
Where: The Commodore
What: Wear your favourite festive sweater (or your least favorite) in support of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of BC & The Yukon, which grants wishes for children with a critical illness.
One night: Saturday December 23, 2017

Vancouver Christmas Market
Where: Jack Poole Plaza
What: Get into the holiday spirit in a new location right on the harbor front with a mix of traditional food and beverage, a selection of authentic wood carvings and toys, knitted goods, nutcrackers, pottery and other unique gifts. Stop off at the special Kid’s Market to make Christmas gifts and ride downtown Vancouver’s only Christmas carousel.
Runs until: Sunday December 24, 2017

The Day Before Christmas
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: Alex is a perfectionist who is desperately holding fast to her Christmas traditions. While juggling family and work—and a movie star—she loses control of her holiday plans, and her home becomes a disaster zone. Can she save the turkey from the dog and salvage a broken-down tree? Find out in this infectious comedy that is sure to make the holidays bright.
Runs until: Sunday December 24, 2017

Breakfast with Santa
Where: Grouse Mountain
What: Start your day of festive fun by treating your family to breakfast on a mountaintop with face painting, a magic show, and a visit from the jolly man in red himself.
Runs until: Sunday December 24, 2017

Karaoke Christmas Lights
Where: The Vancouver Trolley Company
What: Get on a festive Vancouver Trolley and ready your singing voice – this tour is for the most enthusiastic spirits of the winter holidays! Equipped with a TV and a karaoke machine loaded with Christmas music favorites, you’ll be toured around the city to take in some of Vancouver’s most dazzling light displays.
Runs until: Friday December 29, 2017

A Fort Langley Christmas
Where: Fort Langley
What: Hear Kwantlen stories, taste a chestnut roasted over the fire, make a beautiful cedar ornament and admire the giant outdoor Christmas tree.
Runs until: Saturday December 30, 2017

Glow Christmas
Where: Langley, BC
What: Take a stroll through a musical light tunnel, where you’ll feel the warmth and wonder of the Christmas season under the glow of over 500,000 lights.
Runs until: Saturday December 30, 2017

City Lights
Where: The Cinematheque
What: Albert Einstein is said to have cried with laughter at the world premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights in Los Angeles in 1931. Described by Chaplin himself as “a comedy romance in pantomime,” this winning mix of slapstick, sentiment, and social criticism has Chaplin’s beloved Little Tramp falling in love with a blind flower girl.
Runs until: Saturday December 30, 2017

Cirque du Soleil: Kurios
Where: Under the tents, Downtown Vancouver
What: Step into the curio cabinet of an ambitious inventor who defies the laws of time, space and dimension in order to reinvent everything around him. Suddenly, the visible becomes invisible, perspectives are transformed, and the world is literally turned upside down.
Runs until: Sunday December 31, 2017

Onegin
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: When Evgeni Onegin visits the Larin family estate, his romantic charms stir passions long forgotten by its residents. Poet Vladimir Lensky’s romantic ideals are challenged (a duel!) after Onegin flirts with his fiancée Olga Larin, and even the sensible Tatyana Larin falls for the handsome rogue. The hit musical moves, shakes, and wakes audiences with its sweeping score.
Runs until: Sunday December 31, 2017

Site for Still Life
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Andrew Dadson’s practice engages with the notion of boundaries in relation to space and time, primarily through investigations with materials, process and abstraction. Comprising new, ambitious large-scale paintings, film and installation, this exhibition presents a major statement by this young artist of propositions core to his practice.
Runs until: Sunday December 31, 2017

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Where: The Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island
What: Four siblings step through a wardrobe into an enchanted land filled with mythical creatures, talking animals, quests and dangerous secrets. Featuring Sereana Malani as the White Witch and Ian Butcher as Aslan, with Tim Carlson, Chris Lam, Adele Noronha and Kaitlynn Yott as the Pevensie siblings. The first installment in C. S. Lewis’ epic Chronicles of Narnia series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of the best-loved books in children’s literature.
Runs until: Sunday December 31, 2017

Entangled: Two Views on Contemporary Canadian Painting
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: An insight into two distinctly different modes of painting that have come to dominate contemporary painting in this country. The origins of both can be effectively traced back to the 1970s, to a moment when the continued existence of painting was hotly debated.
Runs until: Monday January 1, 2018

Math Moves
Where: Science World
What: Visitors will investigate ratios and proportions, using their bodies, gestures, and words to set up, measure, describe and compare ratios and proportions. The exhibition encourages a collaborative approach to problem-solving, with open-ended activities that provide opportunities for visitors to talk about solutions to the challenges presented in the exhibition.
Runs until: Monday January 1, 2018

Heritage Christmas
Where: Burnaby Village Museum
What: Stroll through the streets of the Village to see wreaths, cedar swags and vintage-themed displays will. At the bandstand, visitors can create their own magical holiday show with lights that change colours to sound.
Runs until: Friday January 5, 2017

East Van Panto: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Where: York Theatre
What: In this East Van tale, our hero flees the Queen of North Vancouver across the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge and lands straight into the madness of the PNE, where she dances with SuperDogs, hops a ride on the Wooden Roller Coaster, and befriends washed-up 80s rock stars “The Seven Dwarves”.
Runs until: Saturday January 6, 2017

Bright Nights at Stanley Park
Where: Stanley Park
What: Take a train ride along a route filled with lights, displays and live performers with the whole family. Donations and a portion of ticket sales go to the BC Professional Fire Fighters’ Burn Fund.
Runs until: Saturday January 6, 2017

VanDusen Festival of Lights
Where: VanDusen Botanical Gardens
What: Experience a winter wonderland with over one million lights. Stroll with friends and family through interactive themed areas, enjoy the famous Dancing Lights show on Livingstone Lake, look for roving Scandinavian gnomes and reindeer in the garden, light a candle at the Make-A-Wish candle grotto, take a photo with Santa, enjoy tasty treats and take a carousel ride.
Runs until: Sunday January 7, 2017

Peak of Christmas
Where: Grouse Mountain
What: Sleigh bells ring, choirs sing! Grouse Mountain presents a magical celebration and a multitude of festivities. Bring your family to Santa’s workshop and meet reindeer, or take a sleigh-ride through a mystical alpine forest. You can also experience the tranquil beauty of skating on an 8,000 square foot mountaintop ice skating pond, surrounded by snow-topped trees or wander through an outdoor holiday lights display.
Runs until: Sunday January 7, 2017

Christmas at FlyOver Canada
Where: FlyOver Canada
What: Fly with Santa and his elves on a magical flight across Canada and on to the North Pole! Join two elves as they take flight across Canada looking for their friends. You may even get a sneak peek of Santa’s workshop.
Runs until: Sunday January 7, 2018

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
Where: Arts Club Theatre
What: “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.” Follow Belle behind the castle walls in this adaptation of the Academy Award–winning animated film.
Runs until: January 13, 2018

Chinese Lantern Festival
Where: Hastings Park
What: As the largest festival of its kind in Canada will feature 35 illuminated displays transforming over 14 acres. Lantern festivals started during the Han Dynasty, about 2,000 years ago. This festival will be embracing traditions with elaborate new lanterns featuring Dragon, White Pagoda, Kylin, and Huabiao Column, each symbolizing a Chinese sage or legend. There will also be two nightly performances in the PNE Amphitheatre featuring acts such as face changing, acrobatics, and folk dance.
Runs until: Sunday January 21, 2018

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: MOA will showcase its Amazonian collections in a significant exploration of socially and environmentally-conscious notions intrinsic to indigenous South American cultures, which have recently become innovations in International Law. These are foundational to the notions of Rights of Nature, and they have been consolidating in the nine countries that share responsibilities over the Amazonian basin.
Runs until: January 28, 2018

Canyon Lights
Where: Capilano Suspension Bridge Park
What: Re-capture the feeling of wonder and excitement of the holiday season and be amazed by the hundreds of thousands of lights throughout the park. The suspension bridge, Treetops Adventure, Cliffwalk, the rainforest and canyon are transformed into a world of festive lights and visual enchantment. See the world’s tallest living Christmas tree (153 feet !) go on a Snowy Owl Prowl, decorate gingerbread cookies and make your own Christmas card in the Winter Pavilion, and sing-along with the holiday band.
Runs until: January 28, 2018

True Nordic: How Scandinavia Influenced Design in Canada
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This ground-breaking exhibition examines the significant influence of Scandinavian craft and industrial design on the development of Canadian culture. Spanning more than seven decades, True Nordic reveals how Scandinavian design was introduced in Canada and how its aesthetics and material forms were adopted, revised and transformed.
Runs until: Sunday January 28, 2018

Tin and Gold: A 10 Year Anniversary Show
Where: The Fall
What: Celebrate 10 years of alternative music, tattoo artistry, and multimedia events. The art show includes artists Megan Majewski, Jenn Brisson, Alison Woodward and more.
Runs until: February 1, 2018

Robson Street Outdoor Ice Rink
Where: Robson Square
What: Bring your skates, hold hands for balance, and circle the rink for free right in the heart of Downtown Vancouver. Skate rentals are also available, and for that you’ll need to bring cash.
Runs until: February 2018

Portrait of the Artist
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: This exhibition brings together The Royal Collection’s paintings depicting self-portraits, portraits of artists and artists at work. Encompassing over eighty works, Portrait of the Artist is a rich survey of how artists have seen themselves and the role of the artist within society.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

Gordon Smith: The Black Paintings
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The exhibition features a body of work described as black paintings that Gordon Smith began producing in 1990. These densely painted, darkly abstracted paintings—punctuated with occasional colour, text and collaged elements—sometimes refer explicitly to this wartime experience. Smith was deployed with the Allied invasion at Pachino Beach, Sicily (code name Husky), in July 1943, when he was twenty-four.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

Carol Sawyer: The Natalie Brettschneider Archive
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Sawyer’s ongoing project that reconstructs the life and work of the genre-defying, fictional singer and artist Natalie Brettschneider. The works on view will connect Brettschneider to a community of mid-twentieth century artists and musicians in British Columbia.
Runs until: February 4, 2018

City on the Edge: A Century of Vancouver Activism
Where: Museum of Vancouver
What: A photo-based exhibition exploring how protest demonstrations have shaped Vancouver’s identity from the Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers’ photo collection. These photographs are exceptional historical records of intense and transformative moments in the lives of Vancouverites.
Runs until: February 18, 2017

N. Vancouver
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: The show in the newly-opened gallery will pay tribute to the evolution of North Vancouver and will feature commissioned works by more than 10 artists, including Andrew Dadson, Gabrielle Hill, Althea Thauberger, Stephen Waddell and Tracy Williams, paired with existing work by Stan Douglas, Greg Girard, Fred Herzog, Curt Lang, and Jeff Wall, among others.
Runs until: Spring 2018

Tasting History: The Traveling Tales of Tea
Where: Roedde House Museum
What: Tea is one of the most consumed liquids in the world, second only to water. But the beverage that brings much pleasure and calm to our 21st century senses is steeped in a turbulent history of politics and society. The exhibit will also feature stories from Vancouver’s modern-day tea community.
Runs until: March 2018

Emily Carr: Into the Forest
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Far from feeling that the forests of the West Coast were a difficult subject matter, Carr exulted in the symphonies of greens and browns found in the natural world. With oil on paper as her primary medium, Carr was free to work outdoors in close proximity to the landscape. She went into the forest to paint and saw nature in ways unlike her fellow British Columbians, who perceived it as either untamed wilderness or a plentiful source of lumber.
Runs until: March 4, 2018

The Lost Fleet Exhibit
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: On December 7, 1941 the world was shocked when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, launching the United States into the war. This action also resulted in the confiscation of nearly 1,200 Japanese-Canadian owned fishing boats by Canadian officials on the British Columbia coast, which were eventually sold off to canneries and other non-Japanese fishermen. The Lost Fleet looks at the world of the Japanese-Canadian fishermen in BC and how deep-seated racism played a major role in the seizure, and sale, of Japanese-Canadian property and the internment of an entire people.
Runs until: March 25, 2018

Chief Dan George: Actor and Activist
Where: North Vancouver Museum
What: An exhibition exploring the life and legacy of Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George (1899- 1981) and his influence as an Indigenous rights advocate and his career as an actor. The exhibition was developed in close collaboration with the George family.
Runs until: April 2018

空 / Emptiness: Emily Carr and Lui Shou Kwan
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The exhibition pairs Canadian modernist Emily Carr with the founder of the New Ink Movement in Hong Kong Lui Shou Kwan. Looking across culture, geography and time to explore expressions of the sublime in landscape painting, the exhibition draws connections by exploring how each artist experimented with abstraction and spirituality in their respective depictions of nature.
Runs until: April 8, 2018

The Fabric of Our Land: Salish Weaving
Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology
What: For generations Salish peoples have been harvesting the resources of their territories, transforming them into robes of rare beauty and power. Symbols of identity, they acted as legal documents and were visible signifiers of the presence of knowledge holders and respected people. Now mostly stored away in museums these masterworks are rarely seen. They have much knowledge to share and many stories to tell. Musqueam asked the Museum to bring these weavings to inspire weavers and share part of this rich legacy with all of us.
Runs until: April 15, 2018

Public Artwork by New Delhi-Based Artist Asim Waqif
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: Inspired by environmental concerns and the pace of human consumption, Waqif will construct an immersive architectural experience from materials collected at re-purpose stores, transfer stations and landfills in the metro Vancouver area. Waqif’s architectural structure will also incorporate an interactive acoustic system using microphones, effects pedals and speakers. Visitors are encouraged to move through the installation maze allowing them to actively experience the architecture instead of passively observing it.
Runs until: April 15, 2017

Winter Farmers Market
Where: Nat Bailey Stadium
What: Each week you can look forward to finding locally grown vegetables and fruit, meat and seafood from local ranchers and fishermen, artisan cheese and bread, herbs and seasonal nursery items, baked goods, prepared foods and artisanal craft.
Runs until: April 21, 2018 (Saturdays)

In a Different Light
Where: Museum of Anthropology
What: More than 110 historical Indigenous artworks and marks the return of many important works to British Columbia. These objects are amazing artistic achievements. Yet they also transcend the idea of ‘art’ or ‘artifact’. Through the voices of contemporary First Nations artists and community members, this exhibition reflects on the roles historical artworks have today. Featuring immersive storytelling and innovative design, it explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to Indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands.
Runs until: Spring 2019

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments below.

---