This first full week of December doesn’t just arrive — it swoops into Tacoma like a glitter-drunk winter muse, tossing out art lightning, barrel warmth, civic love letters, mercy bowls, holiday markets, and jazz wrapped in wild yeast, each event tugging you gladly into its orbit.
Hoppy Holiday Food Drive 2025 Wrap-Up & Awards Party | Tuesday, Dec. 2
Seven years in, Tacoma’s most joyously generous winter ritual returns as Pierce County’s breweries and cideries turn their taps into a benevolent engine and remind everyone that this city’s holiday heart runs on barley and collective goodwill. What began with John and Catie Douville’s hopeful “what if?” has erupted into the Hoppy Holiday Food Drive, a countywide movement — bins filling at 7 Seas, Camp Colvos, Cockrell, E9, Evergreen, Fierce County, Incline, Narrows, North 47, Odd Otter, Sig, Wet Coast, and Peaks & Pints — and Emergency Food Network’s donation pages glowing with digital kindness, especially with two trophies up for grabs: one for pounds, one for dollars. It all converges at Peaks & Pints for the Wrap-Up Party: all-participant taps, a DJ stirring warm mischief, and the triumphant return of the Beer Rep Holiday Choir, that lovable, slightly feral chorus of industry angels. Bring cans, bring dollars, bring that fierce Tacoma heart. This is a city taking care of its own. Holiday food-drive finale, 5–9 p.m., Peaks & Pints, 3816 N. 26th St., Proctor District; no cover; donations encouraged; benefiting Emergency Food Network
The Lemon Sessions | Thursday, Dec. 4
The Tacoma Armory brightens into a citrus-sharp glow as Tacoma Arts Live‘s The Lemon Sessions gathers three powerhouse Northwest artists for an evening that feels less like a show and more like stepping into a charged, multisensory dream. Deepti Agrawal channels centuries of Madhubani tradition; Fulgencio Lazo’s Oaxacan spirit dances in color and line; and Tacoma’s Saiyare Refaei threads murals, ink, and community-rooted tenderness into vivid storywork. Their collaboration becomes a cocktail of shimmering movement and creative electricity — art that doesn’t quietly sit, but hums and swirls around you until you can’t help but follow. Immersive arts event, 7:30 p.m., Tacoma Armory, 1001 Yakima Ave., tickets $18.50–$47
the ten: Flowers For My City Film & Yearbook Premiere | Friday, Dec. 5
Tacoma gets its flowers — boldly, beautifully — as the ten unveils Flowers For My City, a film-and-yearbook celebration that feels like the city catching its own reflection and seeing its pulse. Born from Foster’s Creative’s dream of spotlighting the people who hold this place together, the project has grown into an annual ritual: a cinematic debut, a yearbook thick with stories, a merch drop blooming with 253 pride, and an after-party full of music, makers, and unexpected magic. This year’s film dives through street courts, kitchen tables, rehearsal rooms, alleyway stages — stitching together the creators and everyday giants who make Tacoma rise. Pay what you can (a dollar saves your seat; generosity fuels the future), and contributions of $20+ earn a limited-edition the ten beer brewed with 7 Seas. Come early. Stay late. Let Tacoma move you. Film premiere and community celebration, 6–9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5 (doors 5:30), 7 Seas Brewing Tacoma & West Warehouse entrance at 21st & Jefferson; pay-what-you-can; after-party free
Empty Bowls | Saturday, Dec. 6
Inside Emergency Food Network’s warehouse — normally home to forklifts and the steady machinery of feeding Pierce County — Empty Bowls blossoms for a few bright hours into a handmade holiday market where craft and compassion breathe the same warm air. More than a thousand bowls, shaped and glazed by local artists, stretch across the tables like a galaxy of small, shimmering possibilities. You wander with donated soup warming your palms (thank you, Tibbitts, Chambers Bay Grill, Carr’s, Snuffin’s, and Ivar’s), drifting from earthy ceramics to glossy glass to wood-turned marvels that feel like intimate gifts from imagined worlds. Every purchase becomes meals for neighbors through EFN, turning each bowl into a tiny, radiant act of care. Holiday fundraiser, noon–3 p.m., Emergency Food Network’s The Greens, 3311 92nd St. S., Lakewood; no cover; bowls priced individually
Holidaze Market | Saturday, Dec. 6
The Tacoma Armory glows with warmth and pulse as the Black Night Market returns for its Holidaze edition — part marketplace, part celebration, wholly alive. More than 30 Black and BIPOC-owned businesses transform the space into a vibrant tapestry of handcrafted art, small-batch skincare, fashion, food that stirs memory, and music that drifts like blessing smoke through the aisles. Families linger, kids nibble, strangers talk like neighbors, and the whole thing hums with that unmistakable feeling of holidays done right: joyful, communal, beautifully human. Holiday market, 2–8 p.m., Tacoma Armory, 1001 Yakima Ave.; all ages; free
Jambic & Lazz with Kareem Kandi | Sunday, Dec. 7
Sunday night at Peaks & Pints tips into the deliciously unusual as Jambic & Lazz returns — the monthly communion where lambic’s wild, tart sorcery meets Kareem Kandi’s molten jazz lines in a slow, ecstatic swirl. Lambic, born of open windows, wandering microbes, and ancient foeders, pours like time made drinkable, while Kareem — Tacoma’s smoothest sonic conjurer — bends swing, blues, and celestial mischief into solos that drift through the room like incense from another dimension. It’s less a concert than a gentle haunting, less a beer flight than a fermentation ritual where jazz and yeast seem to breathe together. Jazz, 5–8 p.m., Peaks & Pints, 3816 N. 26th St., Basecamp Proctor; free
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LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
