[webster groves]
Are you one of those holiday decorators who can’t wait to deck the halls, dragging boxes of regalia down from the attic and starting to hang lights inside and out, like, right after Halloween? Or are you still not feelin’ the love, even though here we are nearly a week after Thanksgiving, the ‘official’ start of a homeowner’s season for greetings? Either way, you might enjoy taking in how other folks jolly-up their joints at the 23rd annual Webster Holiday House Tour, sponsored by the PTO of Hixson Middle School in Webster Groves. A half-dozen homes all around the town will be decked out (and in), from the sidewalk through the common rooms, like they’re right out of Jimmy Stewart’s Bedford Falls. Tickets for the Sunday, Dec. 7, event are available for $15 until Friday at Hixson, or Saturday at select merchants in Webster. After that, they’re $18 on tour day in Eden Seminary’s Schroer Commons. During or after the tour, musicians will fa-la-la at Eden, where refreshments and boutique treasures also can be found. Comprising the lion’s share of Hixson’s annual PTO budget, tour monies are earmarked for field trips, teacher grants, student activities, and other expenses not covered in the school budget, so come on out and support the kids!
[ballwin]
Your mother told you that a penny saved is a penny earned. In Ballwin, ‘Pennies Make Sense,’ and kids from the city’s public and parochial elementary schools have collected nearly $6,000 in coins that will go toward meals for the hungry this holiday season. Throughout the month of October, with sponsorship by Ballwin’s police department, school kids raised $5,947 (and change), more than twice the record total—$2,471—set just last year. This is the fundraiser’s 20th anniversary. Since it kicked off in 1994, the effort has collected more than $27,000 … enough for about 108,000 meals for the needy throughout the metro. Participants included kids and staff from Henry, Ballwin, Claymont and Woerther elementary schools, Selvidge Middle School, and Holy Infant. That’s a lot of coinage. And heavy. Hundreds of pounds were collected—not all in pennies, of course—that somebody had to count. The task fell to River City Casino, which graciously counted the change for the second year in a row. The check presentation to the St. Louis Area Food Bank was made at Henry Elementary, which raised the most money of the six schools during the drive, a whopping $2,252.74!
[chesterfield]
For the naughty, ’tis the season to mega-shop for gifts they have no intention of actually buying. Shoplifters are out in droves, some of them in organized gangs, and it’s easier to hit a store where staffers are distracted by real, paying customers. Most ‘hitters’ aren’t sophisticated enough to work together, of course. They’re just knuckleheads committing crimes of opportunity, and one recent incident in Chesterfield sounds like an outtake from the movie Mall Cop. This dude took a pair of sweatpants from Macy’s by pulling them on over the trousers he was wearing, and bowled over a security guard as he made his getaway into the mall. The guard wasn’t hurt, but the thief had to have looked like a fashion victim as he scooted away. Apparently he wasn’t apprehended at the mall.
[creve coeur]
Creve Coeur is one of the most energy-efficient towns under the sun. At least in Missouri, in particular, and in the Midwest, in general, according to Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC). At the Solar Power International conference in Las Vegas recently, our city of the broken heart received the Community Renewables Project of the Year award, which recognizes advancement of renewable energy use through an innovative community approach. Residents and businesses either enrolled in a renewable energy certificate program or installed solar panels, thereby reducing carbon emissions equivalent to taking more than 2,200 cars off the road for a year, says IREC. Creve Coeur became only the second EPA ‘Green Power Community’ in Missouri, and the fifth in the Midwest. To officially ‘go green,’ the community needed to offset 3 percent of community-wide energy use through renewable sources. Creve Coeur offset 3.77 percent. Way to go!
[kirkwood]
What makes Strange Donuts in Kirkwood even stranger than the doughnuttery’s flagship store in Maplewood? Well, for one thing, it’s itty-bitty. For another, the joint’s address is sort of strange: 107½ E. Argonne Ave.—hand-painted in blue on a window, with the zero being a doughnut with sprinkles. And like the Maplewood store, the Kirkwood location welcomes those with a hankering for the sweet fried treats well into the night, which is a little strange for a somewhat staid suburban locale. Thursday through Saturday nights the store reopens at 9 p.m. to cater to late-night tastes until midnight. Of course, there’s a practical element here: The midday shutdown allows plenty of time for them to recover from the morning rush and fry up some new O-shaped pastry after the day shift. And they should be able to cater to all the late-night munchers—unless the goodies run out before the clock strikes 12. Same policy goes for the daylight hours. Strange is open 6 a.m. to 2 p.m—or, as Pappy’s Smokehouse and any self-respecting barbecue joint says, ‘until sold out.’ Yes, you can get a classic long john or glazed doughnut here, but why would you when there are varieties such as Grasshopper (no insects were harmed), Snickerdoodle and Nutella Chip?
[maplewood]
Is there room for yet another brew in the metro, home to Budweiser, so-called ‘King of Beers’? Or in Maplewood, where Schlafly, our second-largest brewery, is situated? And what about Kräftig, the Brentwood-based company founded by Billy Busch? To answer all three questions: of course! Craft brews have made that the case. Kräftig has been around only a few years, Schlafly since 1993, and Anheuser-Busch for a century and a half. Then came upstarts like Urban Chestnut and Morgan Street, and countless other varieties that may have started in someone’s garage. Your neighbor might have a tasting room behind the bar in his den for showing off homemade brews. Now, Schlafly has a neighbor in Side Project Cellar, a craftbeer tasting room at 7373 Marietta Ave., just a few blocks from the Schlafly’s home base on Southwest Avenue. Yes, we’re talking Schlafly’s bushels of apples to Side Project Cellar’s spoonful of applesauce: The tasting room in no way is trying to compete with the growing brewery. It’s there to provide a taste of Perennial Artisan Ales, which are probably worth a try, considering one of their frothy, frosty concoctions won gold for ‘Experimental Beer’—Abraxas, a Mexican chocolate stout aged in rye whiskey barrels—during the Festival of Barrel-Aged Beers in Chicago recently. Bud, the ‘great American lager,’ is a one-trick pony, when you think how beer varieties now are more plentiful than colors in the 64-Crayola box. (Burnt Sienna, anyone?) While Crayolas don’t come in ‘lite,’ they do offer a washable variety.
[st. charles]
Main Street in St. Charles is as charming as any historic avenue in the metro and beyond, a cobblestoned thoroughfare with shops and restaurants in 19th and 20th century buildings lining either side. Of a Saturday or Sunday morning or afternoon, it is family-friendly. Fridays and Saturday nights can be more rambunctious, with an overflow of the drinking crowd, when it can be as rowdy as Laclede’s Landing, Soulard or Washington Avenue in St. Louis. At any rate, getting to old Main Street isn’t quite as attractive a proposition on parallel or connecting streets in the vicinity. But city planners aim to change that, with what’s been dubbed the Fifth Street Gateway Project. Landscape architecture will be a key component to making the city’s main drag less of a drag on the eyes: more greenery, wider sidewalks, a landscaped median, a stone wall to border part of the route and decorative lighting more consistent with the heritage of a city founded in 1809. The city approved details of the plan and was accepting bids for various design and construction aspects through Nov. 14. Work could begin as early as Jan. 15.
Surveillance video of the seven people suspected of dine ’n’ dash at a Chinese buffet shows folks who look like they haven’t missed a meal—ever. County police are on the lookout for five men and two women, all heavyset, who ate at the restaurant in the 8500 block of Watson Road and left the check for the restaurant to pick up. Various images show several rotund fans of Asian fare inspecting menus or just standing around taking up space … lots of it. The ‘Sloppy Seven’ must have eaten a whole heck of a lot, because they face charges of felony stealing once they are brought to justice.