1. Characters from the “Frozen” movie will help Mayor Linda Hepner light a 55-foot tree during Surrey’s annual Tree Lighting Festival, on Saturday, Nov. 21 at City Hall Plaza. The seven-hour event runs from noon to 7 p.m. with plenty of live entertainment and attractions planned, including a “Holiday Tribute Trio” featuring music by The Beatles, Elvis and Michael Bublé, a Letters to Santa Station, ferris wheel, igloo, life-sized snow globe, road hockey, ice carving, Christmas artisans, food trucks, photos with Santa inside Central Shopping Centre and more. The Surrey Food Bank will be collecting non-perishable food items, and Surrey Fire Fighters will be collecting new toys for Surrey Christmas Bureau. For all the details, visit Surrey.ca/treelighting.
2. Some musical fun will fill Surrey Arts Centre during the two-week run of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” the latest pantomime (or panto) staged by the Fraser Valley Gilbert and Sullivan Society. The show opens Wednesday, Nov. 25 with “retro” pricing for tickets, ranging from $10 to $20, with special rates for groups of 10 or more. The story follows Jack as he encounters “a good fairy, a huge giant and his horrible henchman, a sweet princess and the biggest beanstalk ever.” For show and ticket details, visit Fvgss.org or call the arts centre box office, 604-501-5566. If you go, please bring a new, unwrapped toy for Surrey Christmas Bureau.
3. More than 50 vendors, including at least a pair of Surrey-based businesses, will be busy during this year’s Vancouver Christmas Market, which gets going Saturday (Nov. 21) for its month-long run at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza. Cloverdale’s Honeybee Centre will bring its natural honey and wax products to the outdoor market, which will also feature Clayton-based food vendor John Jun’s potato pancakes, under Das Kartoffelhaus signage (in the summer months, he hawks spiral-skewered Hurricane Potatoes). For tickets and info, visit Vancouverchristmasmarket.com.