Happy New Year! Can this be my first post since October 3, 2019? It can be, and it is. It's a rainy day in paradise, so I guess I've got my work cut out.

But not because I've been idle. In the meantime, there have been seven features in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the latest of which was published this morning. It's a review of "The Woodworker's Journey: Concept to Creation," a superlative show now on view at the Schafer International Gallery in the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.

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First anniversaries are marked with gifts of paper, second anniversaries with gifts of cotton, third anniversaries with gifts of leather, and so on. By that protocol, shouldn't the Schaefer International Gallery be observing the Maui Arts & Cultural Center's 25th with silver?

Yes, but instead, the Schaefer's director and curator, Neida Bangerter, has opted for wood, which by conventional protocol ought to have had its turn two decades ago. And who will fault her? Start to finish, "The Woodworker's Journey: Concept to Creation" strikes a chord of celebration.

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Lazily, we often think of tradition as a legacy that never changes.

That's only partly true; what doesn't evolve will die.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, at the dream factory at the corner of Market and Main in Wailuku, the truth of this proposition emerged in subtle ways as a melee of parents and their children (some by blood, some by quirks of casting) rehearsed the Maui Academy of Performing Arts production of "The Nutcracker."

The curtain rises this week at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center's Castle Theater.

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The bio on his website calls Tom Sewell a "multi-media artist, designer, photographer, filmmaker, sculptor, environmental visionary, and self-proclaimed 'Master of mischief, maker of dreams.'" On Saturday he turns 80 the way another fellow might barrel past 39, greeting each new day with the zest of the Cat in the Hat and a plunge in the ocean.

Few who meet Sewell ever forget him. Just ask the optician at Eyes on Main in Venice, Calif., for four decades his source for retro spectacles. Does the name ring a bell?

Says she, "It rings a gong."

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Frosted pines at the Royal Hawaiian, each branch heavy with ornaments. Surfer Santas gliding in on beaches from Hanalei to Kamakahonu. Rudolph in suspended animation, prancing year-round with Dasher and Dancer and Vixen on a Kalaupapa rooftop. In or out of season, the Yuletide spirit rhymes just fine with aloha here in Hawaii nei. But holiday cheer of a musical nature is for the most part a December exclusive.

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