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The Holiday Bazaar at the Community Center last week proved to be the boon Santa needed to cross off the names on his long list. Thirty-six vendors offered their fine, unique handcrafted and curated items to shoppers seeking the perfect gift. Sponsored by My Neighbors Keeper, the annual event is now in its 17th year.

Second period at Wimberley High School started with little fanfare on the morning of December 5th in the AP World History classroom of Mr. Brad Biggers. But just past 10 a.m. a horde of happy visitors entered the room, eager to surprise him with the big announcement: He was the Region 13 December Star of the Month!

Chabad of San Marcos and the Hill Country will light a public six-foot Hanukkah menorah candelabra in Wimberley at the Old Mill Store, 314 Wimberley Square, on Tuesday, December 12, at 5:30 p.m. It is one of the eight days of the Jewish holiday. Following the menorah lighting there will be dancing, live music, traditional Hanukkah food, and Hanukkah gifts.

Members of the 12 Kings Car Club, popular sponsors of Wimberley Coffee and Cars and other car show events in the area, gathered to present a check to the Crisis Bread Basket last week alongside representatives from Ozona Bank, Caroline Adams and Daina Slover. More than a dozen members of the lively social and car club were on hand to present the $4,000 check.

Now that the holiday decorations are up in and around the Square, it is a great time to stroll the streets at night and enjoy all the sparkly lights.

The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a case that could decide whether medical exceptions to the state’s abortion ban are written clearly enough to protect pregnant women who face serious health risks, the Austin American- Statesman reported.

This Saturday, the annual Winter’s Eve festivities commence in Wimberley. The daylong event begins with the “Wishes for Wimberley” Toy Drive Parade led by Santa Claus that begins at 10 a.m. at Ace Hardware, 14307 RR12. Elves will be on hand along the parade route to collect new, unwrapped toys for children in need. The toys will go to The Christmas Store at the Barnabas Connection.

One of the reasons Susan Gibson always keeps a banjo close at hand, be it in the studio or at every show she plays, is because she likes the “lift” it brings to counterbalance a particularly heavy lyric: “Almost like it’s got a smile attached to it,” she says. But as much as she loves the instrument, the fact is, she really doesn’t have to reach for it that often. Not because she shies away from such material, but because her naturally buoyant melodies and warmly reassuring, conversational singing and writing voice more often than not provide all the lift she needs to light up any song, room, or mood.

Riffs, Roams and Raves:

One of the reasons Susan Gibson always keeps a banjo close at hand, be it in the studio or at every show she plays, is because she likes the “lift” it brings to counterbalance a particularly heavy lyric: “Almost like it’s got a smile attached to it,” she says. But as much as she loves the instrument, the fact is, she really doesn’t have to reach for it that often. Not because she shies away from such material, but because her naturally buoyant melodies and warmly reassuring, conversational singing and writing voice more often than not provide all the lift she needs to light up any song, room, or mood. For proof, just listen to The Hard Stuff — the award-winning Texas songwriter’s seventh release as a solo artist and her first fulllength album since 2011’s Tight Rope. Much like the EP that preceded it, 2016’s Remember Who You Are, the aptly-titled The Hard Stuff is rooted in grief; Gibson wrote the album in the midst of coming to terms with the death of first one parent and then the other in the span of four years, a time during which she says her career became far less of a priority to her than her family. But it was that very period of slowing down for emotional recalibration that ultimately pulled her out of the dark and back into the light. As she sings on The Hard Stuff’s disarmingly playful title track, “Nothing lifts a heavy heart like some elbow grease and a funny bone” — and even when Gibson’s not laughing at herself, her refreshingly clear-eyed perspectives on matters of life, love, work, and loss (sometimes all within the same song, as in the invigorating opener “Imaginary Lines” and the deeply moving “Wildflowers in the Weeds”) illuminate the whole album with a spirit-charging current of resiliency. Of course, anyone familiar with Gibson’s music knows that she’s had that in her all along, from her salad days in the beloved Amarillo, Texas- based Amerciana band the Groobees back in the ’90s and from the get-go of her solo career with 2003’s Chin Up. It was even all there at the very beginning, when she wrote a little song in college called “Wide Open Spaces” that grew up to become (with a little help from the Dixie Chicks) one of the biggest country songs of all time. Turns out all she had to do to rediscover it and get herself back on the road to embracing both life and art was to heed the best advice her father ever gave her, three little words that millions of Dixie Chicks fans (and a whole lotta Susan Gibson fans over the years, too) sing along to at every show: “Check the oil!”