Whether you want to start the new year quietly and constructively or keep the party going, New Haven’s got you covered.
Tuesday, January 3
Along with great pizza (and more), a trivia night is on the menu at Next Door. Signups start at 7.
Wednesday, January 4
At 6 p.m., Ives Main Library hosts a New Year, New You vision-boarding session. “Vision boards are a visual representation of your goals and are great tools to keep yourself on track!”
Meanwhile, from 6:30 to 7:30 in a library not so far away (Hamden Public Library’s Brundage Branch), master gardeners Jim Sirch and Betsy Goldberg discuss “Propagating Pollinator Plants From Seed.” In this registration-required workshop, “we will discuss which plants can successfully be started outside in the beginning of winter. Then we will each create our own mini ‘incubator’ with a selection of seeds of plants native to CT. Most materials will be provided but please bring a clean, empty gallon milk jug if you can.”
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Thursday, January 5
From 3 to 4:30 p.m., Wilson Branch Library celebrates Three Kings Day, a.k.a. Día de los Tres Reyes Magos—which technically lands Friday—with “special guests” Movimiento Cultural Afro Continental, set to “perform Afro Puerto Rican bomba drumming and dancing,” and the Three Kings themselves, who will “give out gifts courtesy of the Peabody Museum to children on a first-come, first-served basis.”
Friday, January 6
Yale is on break, but the next highlights tour of the Yale University Art Gallery’s Furniture Study, housed at the university’s West Campus, steps off at 12:30. “See more than 1,300 examples of American furniture and clocks from the 17th century to the present in this facility, which opened in 2019, as well as an outstanding collection of contemporary wood art.”
Starting today between 1 and 4 p.m, City Gallery presents HORIZON, featuring William Frucht’s photos of the “half-abandoned and half-saved” Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital; Ruth Sack’s colorful and at least occasionally biomorphic sculptures; and Michael Zack’s prints derived from the “ghosts” of his previous monotypes.
A First Night celebration on the Branford Green offers “a bonfire, entertainment, ice carvings, s’mores and MORE!” from 6 to 7:30.
Meanwhile, at 7 at Best Video in Hamden, “New Haven rock ’n’ roll legends” The Furors play their first live show since 2020.
Back in New Haven, “an eve of folk and fantasy merriment” is the promise at Never Ending Books, where We Three Bards—might they be the trio who warmed up crowds before Elm Shakespeare Company’s The Tempest last summer?—play a BYOB, tip-jarred show starting at 7:30.
Saturday, January 7
At 10 a.m. (until 1), CitySeed’s weekly wintertime farmers’ market at Conte West Middle School opens for the season.
At 10:30, Elm Community Insight, which “seeks to create an inclusive space for all to learn about and practice meditation, as a tool to start to ‘see things as they are,’” leads a group meditation at Ives Main Library.
The Blue Man Group is still around and still touring, promising “everything you know and love” but also that “the rest is all new!” during their weekend stand at the Shubert. Today’s shows start at 2 and 8 p.m.
Sunday, January 8
Like City Gallery, Kehler Liddell Gallery is getting a jump on the new year with showings by three of its member artists: plein air painter Chris Ferguson, street photographer Hank Paper and, in this case, Chernobyl aftermath photographer Lisa Toto. The exhibition started Thursday, but the artist reception happens today, from 2 to 5 p.m.
Written by Dan Mims. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations, prices and other details before attending events.