If you’re like me, the Halloween decorations are still up in your house, so why is it that we’re already hearing Christmas music in the malls? Well, the last thing I’d want to do is stand on the side of the greedy capitalistic cooption of winter holidays, but when it comes to thinking about theater around the holidays, is really does pay to start early.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, the Winter Solstice - they really do, somehow, all inspire higher audience attendance for certain cinnamon-scented stage events. Maybe it’s just because we are looking for things to do together with our families and loved-ones. In some cases, we use such events as alternative Christmas presents, taking people to a show in lieu of a gift certificate.

So I thought maybe I’d just play a little Christmas music, and tell you about some of the upcoming events and shows in the Bay Area that just might make excellent family outings, or would make for great gifts if you know someone who’d appreciate a pair of tickets as an early holiday gift.

The Great Dickens Christmas Faire kicks off early this year, running weekends from the 22nd of November 22 to the 21st of December, from 10 am to 7 pm, at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

Unleashed by the same folks who brought us the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, the Dickens Faire is a massively entertaining sugarplum of an event, combining elements of a craft faire, a Christmas party, a sugar binge, a theater festival, and an improve comedy show, all with a delightfully Dickensian style. The characters of Dickens most beloved tales wander the streets, mingling with historical impersonators like Edgar Allen Poe and Charles Darwin, lecturing, singing, and acting out indelible scenes right in front of your

eyes. Details can be discovered online at dickensfair.com.

In Oakland, at the opulent Scottish Rite Theater, there is another notable annual tradition returning this year: The California Christmas Revels, which is about as difficult to describe as it is to resist. Inspired by the Revels started in Cambridge in the 1960s, the Revels borrows different holiday traditions, tunes, and dances, taking audiences to a different part of the world and a different time period every year. Wrapped in and around an always inventive holiday story, the revels is a one-of-a-kind celebration of the unstoppable holiday spirit down through the ages This year, from December 12-21, the

Revels presents An American Journey, in which a young traveler in the 1930s meets a mysterious stranger, who magically transports him across America, to experience holiday traditions and songs from the Appalachians to the bayous of Louisiana to the Steinbeckian shacks and tents of Depression Era California. Find out more at Californiarevels.org.

Closer to home, from November 21 to December 21, 6th Street Playhouse is presenting its original holiday extravaganza, an old-fashioned melodrama titled "Jolly Juliana," or "Her Fruitcake has Nuts," followed nightly by a festive holiday vaudeville. Find out more at

6thstreetplayhouse.com.

Spreckels Performing Arts Center is bringing back "Scrooge: The Musical," adding a few new visual tricks to Dickens heartwarming ghost story from November 28 to December 21.

And at Main Stage West in Sebastopol, December 4 through 21, it’s a very different kind of Christmas story, the dark comedy "Other Desert Cities," in which a family with a big secret comes a little unglued when the wealthy conservative parents go head-to-head with their liberal adult children. Packed with surprises and great performances, this is just one more way to celebrate the holidays with friends and family you love. Find out more at mainstage west.com

However you choose to celebrate the upcoming season, do consider making live theater a part of it.