Art
Etty Yaniv
Charleston Heights Arts Center
You have to get close to Etty Yaniv’s art. You’ve gotta get your face all up in its business to see what the Israeli-born artist is doing with her multilayered collages and assemblages. Marshalling very many pieces of cut paper, plastic, photos, and random whatever, she wrestles meaning out of ephemera and disorder, art out of transient material. A useful skill in our day and age.
Through January 5, free, artslasvegas.org
Music
DRUMline Live Holiday Spectacular
The Smith Center
The big drummer boys and girls bust out their own high-amp versions of holiday classics, style-switching among gospel, jazz, Motown, and more, all built on the marching-band traditions of Historically Black Colleges and universities. Put together by the team behind the hit movie Drumline. Saturday, December 29 at 2 and 7:30p, $29-$69, thesmithcenter.com
Literature
An Evening with Derek Palacio and Claire Vaye Watkins
The Writer’s Block
The married authors wrap their fall fellowships at UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute with this cozy lit-night jam sesh: readings, discussion … who knows what madcap biblio antics might ensue? Watkins is the author of Battleborn and Gold Fame Citrus; Palacio, of The Mortifications — excellent fictions all — so you know they’re talented; and they run free writing workshops for kids in Pahrump, so you know they’re big-hearted. Ought to be a great night. December 4, 7p, 1020 E. Fremont St., free, RSVP at blackmountaininstitute.org
Winter Hike at Pine Creek
For an early Christmas gift, take the whole family — well, those over 7 — on this relatively easy 2.3-mile hike with an interpretive naturalist. Nothing says ho-ho-ho like an interpretive naturalist! December 24, Red Rock Canyon, 702-515-5367
Merry-Achi Christmas
Sammy Davis Jr. Festival Plaza
By the time you read this, the onslaught of overplayed Christmas music will already have unfurled from “The First Noel” to the thousandth; the opening notes of “Jingle Bell Rock” will give you ear-burn; and somewhere, there will surely be an animatronic Bing Crosby dueting with a hologram David Bowie on “Little Drummer Boy.” Wanna get away? José Hernández and Mariachi Sol de Mexico will bring a beguiling and joyful cross-cultural flair and international pizzazz to the holiday repertoire. December 14, 7:30p, $30, artslasvegas.org
Party
Repeal Day
The Mob Museum
Eighty-five years ago, the U.S. repealed Prohibition — the swizzle-stick industry was saved! The molecular mixologists of the future suddenly had a future! And organized crime no longer had a monopoly on the hooch. The Mob Museum, which now operates a basement speakeasy, will celebrate Repeal Day with a boozy blowout. December 5, The Mob Museum, $99, themobmuseum.org
Love’s Labour’s Lost
You still have time for a warm toddy of Shakespearean romantic comedy, served by Nevada Conservatory Theatre — hie thee to UNLV! Through December 9, various times, UNLV’s Judy Bayley Theatre, $25, unlv.edu/calendar