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Thanksgiving weekend launches a busy stretch of charitable campaigns, small-business events and holiday entertainment across Falls Church, Tysons and the wider Washington region. Residents can dine for a cause, shop locally, explore seasonal history and choose from a broad lineup of film, comedy, dance, music, theater and visual art.

Giving back and shopping locally

Falls Church nonprofit Comunidad will hold its Plates with Purpose fundraiser on Giving Tuesday, Dec. 2. The organization works with predominantly immigrant families in economically distressed communities and develops locally rooted leaders.

Ten restaurants are participating. Cafe Kindred will donate 20% from every avocado toast sold, while Harvey’s will contribute $2 from each Comunidad Hot Toddy. Ireland’s Four Provinces, Northside Social, Preservation Biscuit and Sweet Rice Thai will each donate $1 from designated menu items. Westover Taco plans to contribute 20% from a selected dish. Offers from Borek-G, Lazy Mike’s and one additional participating restaurant detail were still to be determined.

Small Business Saturday falls on Nov. 29, and One More Page Books is again leading an Arlington and Falls Church passport program spanning both Saturday and Sunday. More than 20 stores, restaurants and other independent businesses are taking part.

Shoppers can collect a passport from any participating location. Those who receive stamps from at least eight businesses may submit it at One More Page or their final weekend stop for entry into a grand-prize drawing scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 3 p.m. at the bookstore.

One More Page, at 2200 N. Westmoreland St. in Arlington, plans free books outside, an indoor scavenger hunt, hourly raffles and snacks. Owner Eileen McGervey said the weekend helps introduce residents to both familiar favorites and less-visible businesses during a crucial sales period.

Participating retailers include Ayers Variety & Hardware, Blossom & Buds, Botanologica, Covet, Doodlehopper 4 Kids, Entangled, Lemon Lane Consignment, One More Page Books, Prologue Theatre, Stylish Patina, Talk Tiles to Me Mahjong Studio, TINT, Trade Roots, Two the Moon, Urban Farmhouse and Victory Comics.

Food and drink stops include Audacious Aleworks, Cafe Kindred, Lil City Creamery, Preservation Biscuit, Rare Bird Coffee Roasters and Yayla Bistro.

Small Business Saturday gained unanimous support from the U.S. Senate in 2011, and officials in all 50 states were participating by 2012. Research cited by organizers says $68 of every $100 spent at a local store remains in the local economy.

Several other community fundraisers are planned:

• The Meridian High School choir will hold a bake sale outside the Community Center from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 29. Proceeds will help pay for the choir’s spring trip.
• Panera at 450 W. Broad St. will donate 30% of qualifying sales to the MEHMS GIVE Day Meal Packing Event from 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 2. Customers must use the code FUND4U.
• Welcoming Falls Church will collect new and gently used winter coats for adults and children from Dec. 1 through Dec. 8. Donations may be left at Meridian High School, Oak Street Elementary School or the Community Center before distribution through the Adult and Family Literacy Center.
• The Center for Youth and Family Advocacy will host Cheers to Community all day Monday, Dec. 1, at Solace Outpost, 444 W. Broad St. Ten percent of sales will support the organization’s youth and family programs. Guests who bring menstrual or personal-hygiene supplies for the Dignity for All campaign may enter a holiday raffle. Falls Church City Public Schools choir and band students will perform.

Seasonal history, books and family activities

Cherry Hill Farmhouse, 312 Park Ave., will recreate an 1860s Christmas from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29. The free event, presented with the Victorian Society of Falls Church, will feature costumed interpreters, decorations, music, stories and children’s activities. Registration is not required.

Mary Riley Styles Public Library lists a Tuesday Morning Book Club discussion of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey for Dec. 22 from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. The discussion is open to adults without registration. Copies may be available through the library catalog, OverDrive or the circulation desk.

Meadowlark Botanical Gardens will add a live-animal Critter Corner to its Winter Walk of Lights on Monday, Dec. 1. From 5:30 to 10 p.m., a NOVA Parks naturalist will introduce visitors to surprise guests that could include an owl, turtle or snake near the Visitor Center fireplace. The full light walk continues through Jan. 4.

Mount Vernon will offer candlelit estate tours at 5 p.m. Nov. 28 and 29. The 45-minute experience examines Christmas customs in 18th-century Virginia and the events leading toward the American Revolution in 1775. Costumed interpreters will portray members of Washington’s family, friends, enslaved community and hired staff.

Visitors can enter the reopened first and second floors of the mansion, including the restored Washingtons’ bedchamber, and tour the enslaved people’s quarters and other outbuildings.

Film

The National Museum of the American Indian’s Native Cinema Showcase continues through Nov. 28 with a free online collection of shorts representing a range of Indigenous stories and perspectives.

At the National Gallery of Art, WINHANGANHA screens from 2 to 3:15 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29. Wiradjuri poet and artist Jazz Money uses archival images, sound, poetry and original music to consider sovereignty, resistance and the effects of archival collecting on First Nations people. The 2023 film runs 65 minutes, and Money will introduce it virtually.

The gallery follows with Emily: I Am Kam from 2 to 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 30. Danielle MacLean’s 2025 documentary profiles Anmatyerr Elder Emily Kam Kngwarray, whose large-scale paintings brought international recognition before her death in 1996. Both screenings accompany The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art.

GALA Hispanic Theatre’s Latin American Innovation film festival runs Dec. 3-7 at 3333 14th St. NW. The program includes six contemporary works by emerging directors and a Mexican Golden Age classic. Films will be shown in Spanish with English subtitles, with individual tickets priced at $10 and a seven-film pass at $35.

The festival opens at 7 p.m. Dec. 3 with Oasis, Tamara Uribe and Felipe Morgado’s 80-minute documentary about Chile’s 2019 protests, the unsuccessful 2022 Constitutional Convention and the political backlash that followed. A reception supported by the Embassy of Chile will accompany the screening.

Comedy and dance

Comedian Derrick Knopsnyder headlines The Vault at Capital One Hall on Saturday, Nov. 29, with Jared Stern and Christopher Lawrence. Doors open at 7 p.m. Knopsnyder has toured with performers including Bo Burnham, Dave Coulier and Josh Wolf and hosts Comedians in Carts Making Bogeys. Stern is a three-time winner of the Best Comedian in Washington award, while Baltimore-area comedian Lawrence has performed around the country for two decades.

Capital One Hall also hosts two versions of The Nutcracker. Ravel Dance Company performs at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29, with an optional family tea afterward. The company, founded by artistic director Janet Hall in 1990, features advanced young dancers selected through auditions.

NUTCRACKER! Magical Christmas Ballet follows at 1 and 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 30, combining ballet, puppetry, elaborate costumes, acrobatics and Tchaikovsky’s score.

The Washington Ballet stages its locally themed Nutcracker at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29, at the Warner Theatre. The production features more than 380 professional and student dancers, George Washington as the Nutcracker and a cherry-blossom scene.

Music

The Nighthawks and The Soul Crackers perform Friday, Nov. 28, at the State Theatre in Falls Church. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show begins at 8. Advance tickets are $20 and day-of-show tickets are $25. The Nighthawks mix blues, R&B, country, doo-wop, gospel and rockabilly, while The Soul Crackers draw on Memphis and Motown soul. Guests younger than 18 must be accompanied by a parent.

Violinist Gil Shaham and pianist Akira Eguchi mark the 300th anniversary of Wolf Trap’s German Barn with a concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 2. The program includes works by Leclair, Vivaldi, Beethoven and Fauré from the period when the barn was built. A dinner supporting Wolf Trap’s arts and education programs follows.

Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer brings A Chanticleer Christmas to George Mason University’s Center for the Arts at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29. The all-ages, sign-interpreted program combines early music, traditional carols and gospel. Tickets range from $45 to $71, with half-price admission for students through grade 12.

Mannheim Steamroller performs at 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 28, at the Music Center at Strathmore. The 40th-anniversary holiday production features 15 musicians playing more than 20 instruments, accompanied by multimedia effects, fog and strobe lighting. Tickets range from $28 to $128.

Strathmore also presents A Swingin’ Little Christmas at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 29. Jane Lynch stars with Kate Flannery, Tim Davis and the Tony Guerrero Quintet in a blend of cabaret, comedy, jazz arrangements, classic carols and original music. Open captioning is available, and tickets range from $28 to $88.

Theater

Birthday Candles opens Dec. 4 at 1st Stage in Tysons and runs through Dec. 21. Noah Haidle’s 90-minute play follows Ernestine Ashworth from her 17th birthday through ages 18, 41, 70 and 101, tracing the joy and heartbreak of an ordinary life. Alex Levy directs.

Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme bring The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Show to Capital One Hall at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 1. The new production promises original songs, comedy, storytelling, dance and elaborate costumes in the eighth year of their holiday collaboration.

The touring musical Some Like It Hot continues at the National Theatre through Dec. 7. The Tony Award-winning production follows two musicians who flee Chicago after witnessing a mob killing during Prohibition. A Pride Night performance at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 30 includes themed activities and lobby music by DC’s Different Drummers beginning at 6:30.

Guys and Dolls runs Dec. 2 through Jan. 4 at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Harman Hall. Francesca Zambello directs the musical about gambler Nathan Detroit’s wager that Sky Masterson cannot win a date with missionary Sarah Brown. Joshua Bergasse choreographs the approximately two-hour-and-30-minute production.

Nova Nightsky Theatre’s Sylvia continues at Falls Church Presbyterian Church through Feb. 6. The comedy follows the upheaval in a marriage after Greg brings home a stray dog.

Ford’s Theatre presents its annual, music-filled A Christmas Carol through Dec. 31, with Craig Wallace returning as Ebenezer Scrooge. The two-hour production is recommended for ages 5 and older. Audio-described and ASL-interpreted performances are scheduled for Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. and Dec. 13 at 2 p.m.

Signature Theatre stages Fiddler on the Roof in the round through Jan. 26. Directed by Joe Calarco, the musical follows Tevye, his family and their Jewish community as tradition collides with social change and rising antisemitism in Czarist Russia. The show runs about two hours and 50 minutes, uses haze, loud sounds and flashing lights, and is recommended for ages 13 and older.

Estonian clown Julia Masli’s improvised holiday production ho ho ho ha ha ha ha runs through Dec. 21 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Each performance draws on audience problems, with no fixed script or outcome. Accessibility dates include audio description Dec. 6, childcare Dec. 7, and ASL interpretation Dec. 12.

Mosaic Theater presents Samuel D. Hunter’s A Case for the Existence of God through Dec. 7. Set in a small southern Idaho office, the play follows two fathers who meet while trying to understand a mortgage and form an unexpected friendship. Danilo Gambini directs.

Lizzie the Musical closes Nov. 30 at the Keegan Theatre. The punk-rock retelling of the 1892 Lizzie Borden case features an all-female rock score and is directed and choreographed by Jennifer J. Hopkins.

Nova Y. Payton stars as Dolly Gallagher Levi in Olney Theatre Center’s Hello, Dolly!, running through Jan. 4. The PG-rated production explores love, second chances and Dolly’s relentless matchmaking, with tickets from $42 to $133.

Arena Stage has extended Reggie D. White’s Fremont Ave. through Dec. 7. The dramatic comedy follows three generations of Black men whose Spades games expose conflicts involving masculinity, identity, family memory and silence. Lili-Anne Brown directs the approximately two-hour-and-25-minute production, which contains mature language and sexually suggestive material.

Visual art and exhibitions

Falls Church Arts presents Kinship through Jan. 4 at 700-B W. Broad St. The juried, all-media exhibition examines bonds among families, communities, cultures and other groups.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work runs through July 12. Built around 33 works from the museum’s collection, the free exhibition reconsiders Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses as a major and sometimes polarizing figure in American art. Moses began painting seriously in her late 70s and had her first solo exhibition in 1940 at age 80.

Colorburst remains at Fairfax’s Stacy C. Sherwood Center through Dec. 19. Curated by the Rogue Art Project, the show brings together works ranging from realism to abstraction, united by bold color. EnChroma eyewear is available.

At George Mason University’s Mason Square campus, Material Acts of Resistance: Michèle Colburn runs through Feb. 6. Colburn uses materials including gunpowder, wire, thread and burned paper to transform signs of conflict into reflections on vulnerability, endurance and dissent.

The Phillips Collection presents Out of Many: Reframing an American Art Collection through Feb. 15. Organized to coincide with the nation’s 250th anniversary, the exhibition combines the museum’s holdings with loans from Howard University Gallery of Art, the David C. Driskell Center and other institutions to examine varied depictions of American people, places and histories.

Hiromi Isobe’s Can I See? closes Nov. 30 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington. Through paintings, fibers, mixed media and sculpture, Isobe explores scientific study, spirituality, uncertainty and the unseen systems that connect people with the cosmos.

McLean Project for the Arts is showing a retrospective of photojournalist Bernard “Bernie” Boston through Feb. 24, 2026. Boston, a longtime McLean resident, became the first African American member of the White House press corps and photographed presidents from Harry Truman through Bill Clinton. Phoebe Mills Farris curated the exhibition, presented with the Friends of Historic Pleasant Grove Church.

Imagining Together: Share Your Memories and Dreams continues at the PARC Gallery in Tysons through Dec. 13. The intergenerational community exhibition includes paintings, drawings and mixed-media work by artists ages 7 to 17 and adults from across the region.

Herndon artist Lisa Green’s Wild Spaces is on view at Rare Bird Coffee Roasters in Falls Church through Jan. 11. The free exhibition includes colorful oils and black-and-white ink washes inspired by meadows, mountains and coastlines. Works range from 8-by-10 inches to 36-by-36 inches.

At Phillips@THEARC, D.C. painter and muralist Rik Freeman presents Wade in the Waters through Feb. 19. The free exhibition connects waterways including the beaches of Bahia and the Anacostia River with stories of the African diaspora, survival, faith, resilience and joy.

The Rubell Museum DC’s Material Witness runs through fall 2026. Thirty artists use unconventional materials—including squid ink, Coca-Cola, ostrich eggs, anointing oil, lipstick, animal hides and discarded metal—to address environmental, political and social concerns across 23 galleries.

Also at the Rubell through fall 2026, Basil Kincaid: Spirit in the Gift presents four monumental quilts created during Kincaid’s 2023 residency at the museum’s Miami location. The works connect quiltmaking with identity, ancestry, community, drawing and jazz.

Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art in Reston pairs Kimberly M. Becoat and Hong Hong in A Land and 河/River through Dec. 20. Becoat uses paint, ink, tar paper, candy wrappers and other debris to examine urban displacement and the destruction of New York’s 19th-century free Black community of Seneca Village. Hong’s paper installation considers water through family migration, literature, birth, symbolism and environmental force.

The Glen Echo Holiday Art Show & Sale continues through Jan. 4. Resident artists, instructors and invited guests offer glass, ceramics, photography, paintings, jewelry, ornaments and sculpture. Admission is free, with gallery hours varying by location.

Lights and local history

ZooLights runs through Jan. 3 at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, illuminating the grounds with animal lanterns, performances and one million energy-efficient LED lights. General admission is $9 for visitors ages 2 and older, parking is $30, and an adults-only date night on Dec. 17 costs $19. Member nights from Dec. 9-11 are free for up to six guests per membership.

The Fairfax Museum & Visitor Center hosts the traveling exhibition Founding Frenemies through Dec. 8. The show examines Alexander Hamilton’s alliances and disputes with influential Virginians and how those relationships affected the nation’s institutions and traditions of political debate. The museum is closed Tuesdays.