It’s one action-packed weekend after another this holiday season, with last weekend seeing the return of traditional favorites of the season: Noel Night and the Detroit Urban Craft Fair, as well as a gamut of art happenings, openings and shenanigans.

Midtown at capacity for Noel Night.

The 42nd Annual Noel Night was full of dramatic contrasts, as holiday revelries played out side-by-side with dramatic (peaceful) protests regarding the grand jury decision not to indict the policemen responsible in the death of New Yorker Eric Garner. The DIA was the locust for more than protest activity, with a record-setting 22,000 visitors this Noel Night, and the street was packed with families, holiday marketers, the return of the DIY holiday card jam at Ocelot Print Shop, and even a roving forest mobile installation, “Missing the Forest for the Trees,” orchestrated by Thick Air Studios.

The Thick Air crew and their hardy corps of volunteers prepare to take the movable forest to the streets.

Business was booming at the Detroit Urban Craft Fair, which ran December 6-7 at the Masonic Temple, and featured some new faces alongside many old favorites. One fresh face on the scene was Burrowing Home, a.k.a. Kelly Mitchell Gazdowicz, whose weirdly whimsical nature sketches were one of the highlights of the recent Trumbullplex-curated group show at Alley Culture.

“A Meeting with Fate,” one of Gadzowicz’s charming and strange creations.

Over Hamtramck way, Public Pool (a Knight Arts grantee) hosted a Good Tyme Writers’ Buffet on the subject of cowboys, to celebrate their current three-man show, “Beer, Bacon, and Bullets.” The evening featured readings by Aubri Adkins, James Hart III, Steve Hughes, Michael Jackman, Nancy Mitchnick and special guest Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of American Salvage and Once Upon a River, whose appearance was made possible by Knight Arts funding. Over at 9338 Campau, a new show quietly opened, featuring the first 10 artists to be profiled on the new art blog, Essay’d—this group show will have its official shindig on the 20th of this month, so you haven’t missed your chance to hobnob with the high-profile and highly-profiled players.

A good “tyme” was had by all.

And if you’re kicking yourself for missing all the action last weekend, consider yourself rested up for this one; the DIYpsi Indie Craft Fair is going on December 13-14 at the Riverside Art Center and will feature handcrafted goodness for the gifting, as will the Merry Market, going on over the weekend at the Detroit Mercantile Co.

Get your gift on, and keep it local!

For your artasmagoric needs, a reprise of the MOCAD’s annual Monster Drawing Rally fundraiser will be going on, Friday, December 12th, starting at 7 p.m., with what promises to be an ever-greater art frenzy. The LP release for hometown heroes Pink Lightning is going down at PJ’s Lagerhouse on Saturday, December 13th, and will feature a full run of their new album, “Blue Skies.” The latest from Pink Lightning.

Don’t come crying to me; I’ve done what I can. The weekend is in your hands!