Culture

Crèches light up the scene at Catholic Christmas festival

For Christmas this year, Leo Keegan set out to create a nativity spectacle at the Cathedral of Christ the Light, the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Oakland. The result was the Starlight Festival: seventeen unique displays of the crèche, or nativity scene, each an interpretation of the biblical story of Jesus’ birth

Chabot Elementary students pen novels in afterschool program

Sitting before a semi-circle of her peers at Chabot Elementary, fifth-grader Nyah read aloud from her story, Alia and Andrew and the Story of the Odd Objects. It’s a novel, and she wrote the whole thing this fall. Her audience, consisting of nine fellow classmates and instructor Sondra Hall, were gathered on a Tuesday for the semester’s last session of “Take My Word For It!,” an afterschool workshop developed by Hall.

Christmas beer spreads goodwill, intoxication

The Trappist was overflowing Friday as thirsty Oaklanders tossed one back in honor of KerstBier Fest—a two-day celebration of the rich brews of the season. On offer at the downtown pub that specializes in artisan and speciality brews were about 30 beer varieties from Belgium, Norway and the US.

“Cinderella” is put on by puppeteers in an unlikely venue

For some, the holiday season starts with the first snowfall, or the lighting of a tree. But at Uptown Body and Fender on 26th Street, a new tradition may be taking shape: an elaborate puppet show performance of the fairy tale “Cinderella.” The show, which is performed by a team of puppeteers and technicians from Oakland’s Zanzibar Fairytale Puppet Theater, is now in its third year, and its second in Oakland.

Oakland collective hosts auction for Prisoners Literature Project

Each year, 24,000 novels, dictionaries and books of poetry are packaged and shipped around the country by volunteers of the Berkeley-based Prisoners Literature Project. For nearly 30 years, the volunteer-run organization has provided books to prisoners in an effort to nurture rehabilitation and encourage education among this sometimes-forgotten population of society.