Thanksgiving has come and gone (deliciously, I might add). Every day that we sink deeper into December brings extra tree-shaped cookies, tins full of fudge, and multi-colored pots of Hershey’s Kisses. It’s officially time for that annual holiday gut check.

The Providence Players’ upcoming show “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” will offer audiences not only a sense of Christmas-tide, but also the spirit of Christmas charity. The Providence Players are co-producing the play with The Young Hearts Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of young people afflicted with cancers such as lymphoma and leukemia.

Americana singer-songwriter Chris Smither loves a performance. It’s an ineffable thing, he says; what’s born of audience and entertainer becomes greater than the both of them, rendering both merely participants. At 68 years old, Smither has spent the better part of his life playing for a crowd, night after night and town after town, building a mutual mood that ceases to be when the final note is played.

Yeah, yeah, people have been doing the Christmas thing for a while now –some even before Thanksgiving– but this Saturday marks the beginning of December and that, my friends, is