Check out the Maxo Vanka annual Holiday Lights Tour in Millvale, enjoy Phipps Holiday Magic or celebrate New Year's with the kids (in the afternoon) at the Children's Museum — here's what to do in Pittsburgh this weekend.
Event
One of the region’s under-the-radar treasures, Maxo Vanka’s murals at St. Nicholas Croatian Church, has reached another milestone: complete restoration of the ceiling art. It’s just in time for the Society to Preserve the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka’s annual Holiday Lights Tours. The hour-long, docent-led tours explore the history and artistry of these pro-worker, anti-war murals in the seasonally lit church. Musical performances precede each tour, and there are homemade Croatian cookies, too. The tours run Thu., Dec. 26, through Tue., Dec. 31, with special Holiday Family Programs Dec. 27 and 30.
Exhibit
Just a few weeks remain to be Home for the Holidays at the Frick Pittsburgh. The special seasonal tours find Henry Clay Frick’s Gilded Age mansion Clayton gussied up for Christmas as it would have been in Frick’s own day. The guided tour includes discussion of how Frick family and staff marked the holidays. The tours continue Tuesdays through Sundays through Jan. 5, and reservations are recommended.
Exhibit
Fairy-tale touches — think gnome ornaments, unicorn topiary — are among the new features in Phipps Holiday Magic, Phipps Conservatory’s seasonal extravaganza. The gardens glow with imaginative lighting features even as the ongoing Winter Flower Show sports amaryllis, orchids and 21 varieties of poinsettia. And that’s just indoors; outdoors, the Winter Light Garden glows away on its own. The display continues through Jan. 5.
Celebration
If your kids (or, to be honest, you) don’t plan on making it all the way to midnight on New Year’s Eve, the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is back with Countdown to Noon. The family–oriented year-end tradition features a concert by Lee Robinson & ISKA. Activities throughout the museum include a chance to share one’s hopes for the New Year live on air with SLB Radio. The event runs 10 a.m. to noon Tue., Dec. 31.
Festival
First Night Pittsburgh returns for its 31st year. The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s big annual New Year’s Eve party Downtown includes the return of the popular ice maze as well as a big-band tribute concert to Ray Charles, led by none other than Pittsburgh’s own Roger Humphries, who once drummed in Charles’ band. Other attractions in the streets and theaters of the Cultural District include dance, comedy, magic, a drag show and music headliner FRZY. The family-friendly Tue., Dec. 31, event is free, though some indoor shows are ticketed.
Film
Creative properties enter the public domain 95 years after they first appear. Row House Cinema in Lawrenceville celebrates New Year’s Day with five new public-domain films, all from 1929. Catch the Ruth Chatterton melodrama “Madame X,” Louise Brooks in the silent classic “Pandora’s Box,” the Buster Keaton comedy “Spite Marriage,” Hitchcock’s “Blackmail” and the Marx Brothers’ “The Cocoanuts.” The one-day Public Domain Day festival is Wed., Jan. 1.
