FunStuff: Charlottesville events November 22 and beyond

Run like a turkey
Be one of those hot dogs who smugly burn giga-calories before the Thursday Thanksgiving gluttony begins. Registration for the  31st annual run at Boar's Head is already closed, but a newer contender– the Earlysville Turkey Trot– was still taking registrants at press time. Plus, it includes a free 1/2-mile kids' run, and walkers are welcome. The race benefits the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.
November 22, 600 Earlysville Forest Drive, Earlysville, 9am, $37

Altruistic Black Friday
If hitting shopping malls the day after Thanksgiving isn't your thing, here's another way to do your holiday giving. At the Alternative Gift Fair, local nonprofits and charities will set up shop and tell about the good they do– and where they can use help.  For a different kind of gift, make a donation to the cause of your choice, and you'll take home a  gift-acknowledgement card showing that your contribution  has been made in a recipient's name, all ready to slip into their stocking.
November 23, Paramount Theater, 10am-5pm, free

The real Kris Kringle
For some people, It's a Wonderful LIfe is the must-see holiday movie. For others, there's nothing like a real Santa Claus story, and that's Miracle on 34th Street. Starring Academy Award winner Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, the hired Macy's Santa who insists he's the real thing, this 1947 film also has Maureen O'Sullivan and a very young Natalie Wood. How often do you get a chance to see a classic like this on the big screen?
November 23, Paramount Theater, 7pm, $8/$4

Let there be light
The turkey has hardly been digested when the holiday season officially kicks off with the Grand Illumination of the community Christmas tree at Central Place on the Downtown Mall around 6pm. This "winter wonderland" on Black Friday offers games, handicrafts, face-painting, kettle corn, caroling, a performance by Mr. Magic– and perhaps a visit from a red-suited guy.
November 23, Central Place, 4:30pm-7pm, free

On board
Maybe you've never been to the recently moved Richmond Railroad Museum. Maybe you had no idea there was a Richmond Railroad Museum. Maybe it's time to remedy that, especially if you have a railroad-tarian in your life. The museum is normally only open on weekends, but it's got special hours on Black Friday and a gift shop. And snacks.
November 23, 102 Hull Street in Richmond, 10am-4pm, free

Hacken back
Word is that local legends, the Hackensaw Boys, have been putting their songwriting efforts into The Old Sound of Music, Volumes 1 and 2. Expect the latest incarnation of their own Americana brand of picking, punk, and rockabilly for a brown liquor/PBR kind of Saturday night show. With Sarah White and Josephine.
November 24, Jefferson Theater, 8:30pm, $18

Infamous picking
Best known as the bass player for the Infamous Stringdusters, a group that refuses to be defined as merely a bluegrass band, Nellysfordian Travis Book also doesn't shy away from a free-to-the-public bar gig on a Tuesday night, going solo on guitar. Odds of him being joined by a few surprise special guests? Excellent.
November 27, Whiskey Jar, 10:30pm, free

Dance faster
We'll admit, we're a sucker for saxophone. And saxophonist Dominic Lalli has a master's in jazz from the Manhattan School of Music. But with drummer Jeremy Salken, Big Gigantic becomes something else all together– a sound that morphs into an electronic, hip-hop, funkadelic frenzy that's highly danceable. This ain't your father's sax.
November 27, Jefferson Theater, 9pm, $23

Backroads bluesy jazz
Down in Nellysford, veteran musicians Kat and Doug from The Travelers are going to lay down their take on vintage jazz, blues, and swing on Wednesday night, with Kathleen Kraft's sultry vocals and maybe some of Bluzonia founder Doug Hedstrom's original tunes. And there's fresh-brewed beer to back it.
November 28, Wild Wolf Brewing Company, 7pm, free

House of decor
Who knew that before she wrote Ethan Frome and House of Mirth, Edith Wharton penned a first book, what some consider a classic on interior design, The Decoration of Houses? Certainly UVA architectural history professor Richard Guy Wilson knew, and he's written a book– Edith Wharton at Home: Life at the Mount. Wilson chronicles the building of Wharton's house in the Berkshires, built as a reaction to the Gilded Age she satirized in her novels.
November 29, New Dominion Bookshop, 5:30pm, free