Holiday Season

Rush Limbaugh's Inexperienced Cousin Named Cape Girardeau Prosecutor

If, for some reason, you don't think the name Limbaugh carries any juice in Cape Girardeau, consider the following news blip. On Christmas Eve, Gov. Jay Nixon appointed Christopher Limbaugh the prosecutor for Cape Girardeau County. The 28-year-old Limbaugh, who'll become the county's top law enfor ... More >>

Happy Whatever from RFT Music!

Now we're talking: It's finally cold enough to drain the blood from your knuckles and put a sting in your cheeks. Just in time to find some loved ones, fire up some hot beverages and celebrate the things that are important to you in whatever way you enjoy doing that. We're shutting off the fluoresce ... More >>

A Very Mayan Christmas

7 p.m. Friday, December 21. St. Louis Skatium, 120 Catalan Street.

Ask a Mexican: Special Navidad Gift Guide Edition

Ten Best Food Events This Weekend: Dec. 7-9

Friday (Dec. 7): Lobster Festival @ Broadway Oyster Bar Try out a special lobster menu accompanied by live music both evenings. Start off with some lobster bisque ($5.99) and work your way up to dishes such as lobster ceviche ($15.99) and twice baked lobster ($38.99). Friday, Dec. 7 and Saturday, ... More >>

Sugar and Spice

Make it A Tchaikovsky Tchristmas

Tell us Your Favorite Christmas Song to Win Jinglefest Tickets

It's nutcrackin' time! Soon all the shows in town will be related to either the Holidays or the apocalypse; we choose to embrace the festivities either way. Starting with tomorrow's Jinglefest 2012 (hosted by WIL 92.3 FM) at the Family Arena. Now in its tenth year, the festivities will include sets ... More >>

Rabbi James Stone Goodman and Brothers Lazaroff Record Eight Nights for Havey Kronblum Jewish Food Pantry

​Last week, Brothers Lazaroff threw its first Hanukkah Hullabaloo after the Kinky Friedman show at Off Broadway. Performing with Rabbi James Stone Goodman, Will Soll's Klezmer Conspiracy and the Vaad, the group recited poetry, improvised in traditional European folk style and even cooked latk ... More >>

The St. Louis Food Lover's Gift Guide: Edible Stocking Stuffers

With a little planning and a couple of cocktails the holidays can go down smoother than a pint of spiked egg nog. Gut Check's assembled a series of guides to help find the perfect present for the food lover in your life while maintaining sanity and investing in your community... and, okay, maybe pic ... More >>

Your Weekly St. Louis Bestseller List

​Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending December 11, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Pudd'nhead Books, Subterranean Books and Sue's News. Despite Amazon, e-books and the crappy e ... More >>

Every Bert Dax Christmas Volume Nine Track, Streaming with Commentary: Part Three of Six

​A Very Bert Dax Christmas, Volume Nine has now officially been released. The ninth annual X-Mas compilation, a joint release by Rob Severson from Pancake Productions (subject of this week's music feature) and Matt Harnish of The Bert Dax Calvacade of Stars, features a pool of truly diverse lo ... More >>

A Very Ludo Christmas at the Pageant, 2011: Photos

Todd OwyoungLudo heads back to the bar.​St. Louis' Ludo has been playing Christmas shows since before the band caught its big break with 2008's You're Awful, I Love You. The Xmas spectacular gets bigger every year, and this weekend's installment featured trees, Santa, candy cane archways and, ... More >>

Ten Best Food Events This Weekend: December 2-4

Friday (Dec. 2): Candlelight Christmas Walk @ Mount Pleasant Estates Enjoy a horse-drawn carriage ride and freshly roasted chestnuts, hop aboard the antique trolley for Christmas shopping, and partake of a dinner buffet with award-winning wine over live music during this holiday event. Buffet is $ ... More >>

Area Wolves Seek Transportation for the Holidays

This holiday season while families gather and write down their Christmas lists, Rachel Broom, director of development at the Endangered Wolf Center (6750, Tyson Valley Rd, Eureka) will continue her search for transportation for the 42 wolves, wild dogs, and foxes that call the center home. Located ... More >>

Drag Your Ass Out Tonight

Kinky Friedman's Hanukkah Tour: Now With Tequila And Jump Drives

​Kinky Friedman is returning to Off Broadway on December 2nd. However, this being Kinky Friedman, there will be considerably more on the docket than a dude singing into a microphone. Currently between book-writing efforts, the Kinkster is on the road for Hanukkah, stopping in fourteen cities. ... More >>

French Bliss

Canadian Gingerbread Houses Recalled for Staph Infection

Canadians who got gingerbread houses might not have had a merry Christmas. The Toronto Sun reports that gingerbread houses sold at an Ontario Whole Foods were recalled on Christmas Eve for possible staph contamination.Christmas wasn't great for a would-be French truffle thief, either. According to t ... More >>

10 Things to Do This Saturday if You Don't Celebrate Christmas

RFT layout editor Kholood Eid contributed to this post. image via​In case you've been living under a rock, you probably know that this Saturday is Christmas Day, a time for joy and family and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. But what if you are joyless or family-less or see no reason to ... More >>

KFC Does Christmas Right ... in Japan

What do people in Japan eat for Christmas dinner? KFC, of course. Laos News reports that the American chicken chain has created a Christmas tradition of eating fried chicken in Japan. Their catchy marketing slogan is, "At Christmas you eat chicken."If it's a KFC in Brazil, they'd better get ready to ... More >>

10 Reasons Your Mall Santa Hates You

With Christmas fast approaching, we recently contacted several mall Santas to ask them what we can do to make their holiday more enjoyable. Here are some of the things we heard back from a few not-so-jolly St. Nicks:​1. Screaming Toddlers: We know you've waited in a long line for the privilege of ... More >>

A Very Bert Dax Christmas CD Release Shows

Active Waiting

Just How Many Antibiotics Are Given to Livestock, Anyway?

29 million pounds of antibiotics. That how much the Atlantic says was given to animals intended for food last year. This is the first time the Food and Drug Administration has tracked antibiotic use in commercial livestock.A hacking we will go! National Restaurant News reports that McDonalds had a d ... More >>

St. Louis Cops Show Sensitive Side With Christmas Concert

​They're big, they're packing heat and they go toe-to-toe with the city's most vicious gang-bangers for a living.But did you know the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department also has its own choir? As we reported earlier this year, the singing group is one of only four such police choruses in the ... More >>

This Week in Gut Check, Regurgitated

image via​This week, Gut Check might have landed on the naughty list. Check out our NSFW list of the top ten X-rated Xmas treats and also a compilation of epic gingerbread house fails. Just don't call us if you wind up with lumps of coal Christmas morning. What else did we do this week? ... More >>

Rough Shop Holiday Extravaganza

8 p.m. Friday, December 10, and Saturday,

How to Avoid Becoming a Grinch This Holiday Season

image via​It's so easy to succumb to Grinch-ish-ness this time of year. It's dark, it's cold and you can't go anywhere without hearing fake-cheerful Muzaked Christmas songs. This all makes you especially vulnerable to the good sad songs, like "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" or "I'll B ... More >>

Heavens to Etsy

Flora and Fa-la-la

Top Sellers at Area Record Stores: Week of November 29 through December 5

* = coming to town, = local ​Euclid Records 1. Shelby Lynne - - Merry Christmas 2. Various Artists - - A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector 3. Mavis Staples - - You Are Not Alone 4. Doors - - Live in Vancouver 1970 5. Norah Jones - - Featuring Norah Jones

Clownvis Presley Re-Imagines Holiday Classics -- and Creates a New One -- With Christmas in Hollywood

Clownvis Presley presents: Christmas in Hollywood!​ Clownvis is a lot of things: a clown, an Elvis impersonator, a wedding officiator, a burlesque emcee, a controversial television show contestant, a nice dude. If there's one thing he's not, however, it's traditional. Thus, the Clownvis Pres ... More >>

Holiday Jams 2010: Yo La Tengo, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Live at Cicero's, 1987

(Every day in December, we'll be posting holiday jams for your enjoyment. Have any favorites you want featured? Email me.) Hoboken, New Jersey, noisemongers Yo La Tengo are known for their (mostly) annual Hanukkah residency, where special guests and pals join the trio in seasonal merriment. In hono ... More >>

We Believe

All It's Cracked Up To Be

The End of Christmas Creep

Rock, Roll, Shop

KEZK Wants You to (Oh-So-Softly) Rock This Holiday Season

A still from the "Last Christmas" video.​As of 5 p.m. Friday, November 12, KEZK (102.5 FM) has started programming Christmas/holiday music 24-7 on the terrestrial airwaves and online at KEZK.com. According to a press release, the station "will feature traditional songs from top artists like Bi ... More >>

Not Quite Christmas Creep

Cow Kidnapped, Sheep Decapitated in Brazen Attack of Hillbilly Nativity Scene

​Maybe it's a lesson as to why you should never set up Christmas decorations before Halloween. Or maybe it was just a senseless act of pagan vandalism. Whatever the case, the good people of Laurie, Missouri, are today left questioning who stole the hand-painted, wooden cow from the town's nativity ... More >>

Too Soon: Holiday Music On the Station Formerly Known as The Beat

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xmas_tree.svg​Well, at least the 24-7 Christmas music didn't start in St. Louis this year until November 1. (Last year, if you remember, it started on October 10, after Movin' 101.1 prepared to flip to sports talk from upbeat music.) But yes, after hip-hop st ... More >>

We're Oliver This

A Dickensian holiday

Let's Make a Meal

We'll drink to that!

Seasons Beatings

The Gift of Good Tastes

A Moonlit Mile

Don't Hug the Trees

Celebrate them

God Bless Us, Every One!

Happiness Comes at a Price

(But it's a small one)