4th Avenue Winter Street Fair – Dec. 13, 14, 15

Open all 3 days, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. More from www.fourthavenue.org:

Free to the public, the Fourth Avenue Street Fair brings together 400+ arts and crafts booths, 35+ food vendors, 2 stages, Community Stage North, Main Stage South, street musicians, food, jugglers, street performers, the ever so popular Free Tucson’s Children’s Museum’s kids hands-on-art Pavilion. There is face painting, balloons, demonstrations, sidewalk entertainment and tons of other fun activities.
This is Tucson’s Largest Arts Venue.
A Tucson Tradition

4th Avenue Winter Street Fair starts today

Three full days: December 9, 10 and 11 — 10 to 6 p.m. daily, on 4th Avenue between University Blvd. and E. 9th Street (north of the underpass).

Free to the public, the Fourth Avenue Street Fair brings together 400+ arts and crafts booths, 35+ food vendors, 2 stages, Community Stage North, Main Stage South, street musicians, food, jugglers, street performers, the ever so popular Free Az Virtual Academy’s Tucson’s Children’s Museum’s kids hands-on-art Pavilion, face painting, balloons, and tons of other fun activities, then packs them into three days of celebration.

The Fourth Avenue Street Fair began in 1970 when Fourth Avenue merchants put tables in front of their stores to attract customers before the holidays. From that beginning it has developed into one of the premier street fairs in the nation, drawing crowds of 200,000 to 350,000 and ranking as one of the top visual arts fairs in the country.

For information: http://www.fourthavenue.org/. Just in time for Christmas shopping, or for other winter celebrations.

While at Antigone Books (411 N. 4th Avenue) or Delectables restaurant (533 N. 4th Avenue) you can pick up a copy of the new Tucson photography book “Together We Thrive” (click here for blog). It features 22 beautiful photos of those three memorials after the mass shooting on 1/8/11.

Horrible Holiday Sweater Contest and other fun events at 2nd Saturday Downtown

Join thousands of other Tucsonans on December 11, 2010 for the monthly 2nd Saturdays Downtown for: Special Holiday Activities!

–Santa Claus at the Downtown North Pole (120 E. Congress)
–Holiday Window Decorations Contest
–“How the Grinch Stole Christmas” Screening
–Horrible Holiday Sweater Contest (45 S. 6th Ave.,at Rockin’ Queen)
–Wintery-Weather Event
–Free Concert by Five Way Street at the Fox Tucson Theatre

I’m one of the lucky people on Earth who has NEVER received a horrible holiday sweater or sweatshirt. What a relief, so I don’t have any chance of entering this contest, unless one of my loyal readers wants to donate just one of their horrible sweaters to me, by leaving it at the Tucson Newspapers Inc. front desk. (Hint: my size is medium).*

Five Way Street will be performing a musical tribute to Crosby, Stills and Nash at the Fox Tucson Theatre, 17 W. Congress St., 7 to 9 p.m.

On Scott Avenue stage:
5pm-6pm: Lunar Light Collectors
6:45pm-8pm: Jazz Telephone
7:45pm-9pm: Kristen Chandler

Along Congress Street

5pm-9pm: Critical Stilts
5pm-9pm: Living Statues presented by Parasol Project
5:30pm-7:30pm: Odyssey Story Arts Cart

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Along 6th Ave.

4pm-9pm: Old Pueblo Vintage Fire Brigade’s Vintage Fire Trucks

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Ronstadt Transit Center @ 6th Ave. & Congress St.

4pm-5pm: The Dusty Buskers
5pm-5:30pm: House of Dance
5:30pm-7pm: Les Avenge
6:30pm-8:30pm: Magician John Coppin
7pm-8pm: The Dusty Buskers
8pm-9pm: Technophobes

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Indian Village Lot – Kid’s Corner! Between Stone & Scott on Congress St.

West Wall: Cinema La Placita – “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”
East Wall: Wintery-weather event, Zero Gravity Jumping, Art activities & more

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MEB Management/North Pole 120 E. Congress St.

5:30pm-8:30pm: Santa & Elves

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Old Pueblo Garage, 27 E. Congress St.

5pm-7pm: Mitzi Cowell & Rebecca Horton

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NW Corner Congress St./Stone Ave.

5pm-7pm: 4th Street String Band

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SW Corner Congress St./Stone Ave.

7pm-10pm: Les Avenge
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Chicago Store, 130 E. Congress St.

5pm-9pm: Toby Chivers

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* Side note: Noticed an ad in Zocalo magazine (December issue, page 33) that the Tucson Thrift Shop has tons of recycled Christmas sweaters (“for your Ugly Christmas Sweater Parties”). They are at 319 N. 4th Avenue, phone 520-623-8736. Check them out today or tomorrow during the 4th Avenue Winter Street Fair. You’ll have plenty of time to acquire one before the Saturday night horrible holiday sweater contest.

Tucsoncitizen.com holiday party for staff/bloggers

Twenty two of the Tucsoncitizen.com citizen journalists/bloggers attended a holiday thank you party today at the TNI community room at 4850 S. Park Ave. I’ll include a list of who was there later, but the party was hosted by Editor Mark Evans and his wife Lynn and daughter Rachel. Most of the main menu food/drinks/cake was supplied by Gannett Inc., with us volunteer writers contributing other pot luck dishes.

After an initial meet & greet (as many of us have never met), Mark talked about how our page views have almost doubled since January 2010, about staff changes with Anthony Gimino coming on as a Sports Network Administrator, and the resignation (today) of Co-editor Ryn Gargulinki, but the hiring of a new Social Media Editor in January. He wants to add more bloggers, more content, perhaps a new site design & features. Hopefully in the future, some of the blogsites will be generating revenue through advertisements. Mark also spoke of more community outreach through other local media, having a booth at the upcoming March 12 & 13 Tucson Festival of Books, and a booth at next December’s 4th Avenue Winter Street Fair in 2011.

Who attended this afternoon:
Anthony Gimino (Anthony Gimino’s Wildcat Report)
Sonja Taysom (Living Thin)
Peter Norback (One Can a Week)
Jonathan DuHamel (Wry Heat)
Carolyn Classen (Carolyn’s Community – me)
Cherlyn Strong (Paranormal Old Pueblo)
Linda Strader (Dry Heat Gardener)
Bonnie Lewis (Pour me Some Grapes)
Debbie Price (future photo blog)
Molly Thrasher (Tucson Bites)
Karyn Zoldan (From Market to Food Market)
Art Jacobson (The Data Port)
Kyle Arps (Bleed Red & Blue)
Denise Early (Medicare & More)
Charles Spillar (Artistic Tucson)
Larry Liascos aka Jimmy Petrol (Humor: Fueled by Petrol)
Penelope Starr (Telling Stories)
Karl Hoffman (Living on the Border)
Matt Minkus (The Matt Minkus Show)
Bjay Wooley (Tucson Tales)
Scott Terrell (UA Sports.net)
Pamela Powers (Tucson Progressive)

About 7 guests (spouses/partners/friends) also attended and enjoyed the luncheon.
Mark created a 10 question Tucson Citizen trivia contest, which was won by yours truly and 2nd place went to Cherlyn Strong. I won a lightly used Lumix camera (which I need), and Cherlyn won a gift certificate to Target. (If any of you are interested in what the questions were, comment below and I’ll let you know.)

Missed the rest of you who weren’t able to attend & party with us. The online Tucsoncitizen.com started off with 7 bloggers (along with Mark and Ryn) back on June 2, 2009, went up to 45 in January, 2010 and is now at 65 bloggers online! Keep writing everyone!

Happy Holidays from Tucsoncitizen.com.