Seasonal activities, song and dance performances, Christmas displays, and much more can be found at the Family Museum on December 2 when the venue hosts its annual celebration WinterFest, with this year's event-filled afternoon treating guests to displays, photos, and even visits from Santa, Mrs. Claus, and a real live reindeer.

A former Black Hawk College student who studied under famed area artist Jean Tamesia, Kathleen “Casey” Washington will showcase her artworks at Davenport's MidCoast Gallery at Bucktown, with the painter and multi-media artist having prepared three different approaches for the December 1 through January 31 exhibition: “The Essence of Picasso,” “Specialized Portraits,” and “Art Designed Furniture.”

In presenting the third of its six Masterworks concerts during the 2018-19 season, the Quad City Symphony Orchestra celebrates not only the ensemble's 104th year of performance, but the 100th birthday of a composing and conducting in the December 1 and 2 concert event Celebrating Bernstein's Centennial, with the program of Leonard Bernstein works featuring special solos for Concertmaster Naha Greenholtz on violin and Daniel Won on clarinet.

There's a little something for everyone in the adventure fantasy Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald – and that's kind of the problem. Serving as both prequel and appendage to her Harry Potter series, screenwriter J.K. Rowling's continuation of her latest wizard saga boasts plenty of random pleasures, including some nifty visuals, a couple of cheerful comic turns, and a scarily resonant sequence suggesting a Rowling-ized Nuremberg rally. Yet this second installment in a planned five-part franchise – one that began with 2016's Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them – is still so wildly overstuffed with incident and exposition, and so distractingly focused on The Bigger Picture, that it barely gives us a chance to admire its many lovely fringe touches. There may be a little for everyone here, but taken overall, there's not a lot for anyone.

I had the pleasure of meeting several Democratic women candidates from Lake County during the Illinois State Fair last summer. Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) was showing them around town and brought them to a reception I was attending. We chatted for a while before they went on their merry way.

“Merry” is actually an understatement. Those candidates were positively joyful. They seemed genuinely thrilled to be running for office. Only one had ever run for something before. The rest felt compelled to get involved after the 2016 election.

An elderly woodcarver, a magical blue fairy, a singing and dancing fox and cat, and a wooden puppet who longs to be a real boy will all grace the stage from November 23 through December 29, as Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse presents show-only and brunch performances of Pinocchio, the holiday family musical based on the classic fairytale.

With the Chicago Tribune calling their performances “politically incorrect and funny” and the Charleston City Paper adding that the cast “has funny going on before they even open their mouths,” the Chicago-based comedians of Pimprov bring their sketch-comedy skills, acting talent, and significant bling to the Circa '21 Speakeasy on November 24, demonstrating why the Los Angeles Times calls their set “not your traditional improv.”

Fans of Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Taylor, Claire Danes, and/or the comforts of tea can enjoy a trip back in time on November 24, when Davenport's Putnam Museum & Science Center hosts an afternoon tea along with screenings of Little Women, the Alcott classic being shown in both its Oscar-winning 1949 version and its Oscar-nominated 1994 adaptation.

Praised by PopMatters as musicians who “pull off the neat trick of straddling the line between small-scale touches and anthemic choruses,” and by Paste magazine as artists who “bring to mind the best of Tom Petty and the more fun aspects of Father John Misty and The War on Drugs,” the indie rockers of The Artisanals headline a Moeller Nights concert on November 24, performing in support of their self-titled debut album released a mere two months ago.