MONDAY, DECEMBER 4
MUSIC Jazz saxophonist Dave Koz is celebrating his 20th anniversary Christmas Tour at Strathmore’s Music Hall. This year, he reunites with original Christmas tour bandmates David Benoit on piano and Peter White on guitar with trumpeter Rick Braun and singer Selina Albright. In addition to hits from their own repertoires, the band will perform fresh renditions of Christmas classics and a Hanukkah medley. $48-$88, 8 PM.
EATING Craving delicious tortillas stuffed with chicken and beef? If you’re good at wolfing them down, join Don Tito’s second annual Arlington taco eating contest. In the competition’s preliminary rounds, contestants eat as many tacos as they can in one minute. The championship round features one winner from each prelim round and rewards the first person to eat 10 tacos—all with varying levels of spiciness. The first three finishers will receive Don Tito gift cards. $20 to compete (advanced registration recommended), 7 PM.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5
BOOKS In his memoir Cartoon County: My Father and His Friends in the Golden Age of Make-Believe, author Cullen Murphy reflects on his father, John Cullen Murphy. The older Murphy drew the popular comic strips Prince Valiant and Big Ben Bolt and raised his family in a community of illustrators and cartoonists in southwestern Connecticut. Murphy will reflect on his childhood and his father’s cartoons at Politics & Prose. Free, 7 PM.
MUSIC Signature Theatre’s Holiday Follies presents an evening of seasonal tunes and good cheer in a cabaret atmosphere, with solo and ensemble performances—and hot toddys on the menu at the in-house Ali’s Bar. Through December 16. $35.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6
FILM The 2014 documentary Sacred Sperm explains the somber commandment in the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish community which considers new life sacred and the spilling of sperm to be murder. In this documentary, director/narrator Or Yashar shares his journey of how he is raising his son in keeping with his faith. The film screens at the Avalon. $12.50, 8 PM.
MUSIC Guitarist and songwriter David Rawlings is most known for his musical partnership with folk songstress Gillian Welch, but he has his own solo career as well. His latest solo album, Poor David’s Almanack, is a fantastic collection of Americana tunes; Rawlings performs alongside Welch, Paul Kowert (of the Punch Brothers), Willie Watson, and Brittany Haas at the Lincoln Theatre. $36, 8 PM.
