Front Row Seat

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A fantasy all-star cast for "A Christmas Carol"

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

Ghost of Christmas Past: Betty White in the Christmas episode of Golden Palace. In the holiday episode of this short-lived Golden Girls spin-off, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia appear as ghosts to bring the holiday spirit to their cook Chuy. Rose, appearing in veil and halo, briefly confuses Christmas dreams with wet dreams before escorting Chuy first into his bathroom and then into his past, where it's revealed that Chuy's hatred of the holiday stems from his father's making him dress as a giant Navidad cake.

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A Minnesota Christmas music playlist

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

When I asked, on Facebook and Twitter, for suggestions of Christmas music by Minnesota artists, the call was met with stone silence. For all the strength and diversity of our local music scene, Christmas music really isn’t something Minnesota artists are particularly known for. I was left, then, to do my own brainstorming and research; here’s the result.

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Holey Christmas Tree: St. Paul entrepreneur punches up an enviro-friendly take on the artificial tree

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

"I'm going to write about how this Holey Christmas Tree is environmentally friendly," I told my girlfriend as I punched the tree's sections out of a large sheet of cardboard.

"You can also," she suggested, "say how it allows you to have a semblance of Christmas spirit with about 12 minutes of work."

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Five ways to musically acknowledge Christmas without listening to Christmas music

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

1. Listen to Zuzu's Petals. This seminal Minneapolis all-female power trio fronted by Laurie Lindeen—later to become Mrs. Paul Westerberg and author of the memoir Petal Pusher—had a name inspired by the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life.

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Giving thanks for my (first) five years at the Twin Cities Daily Planet

By Jay Gabler, Front Row Seat

Editorial meeting with Morgan at a Forever Young dance party. Photo by Alex Roob.

Five year ago this month, in November 2007, I joined the Twin Cities Daily Planet staff as assistant editor. My new boss Mary Turck—who had herself been in the job for less than a year, having taken the reins from founding editor Craig Cox—was proud of the fact that the Daily Planet had built the capacity to, on average, publish one original story per day. Now, we publish about five original stories per day, in addition to stories from our media partners. In the month preceding my hire in 2007, the Daily Planet had welcomed 35,000 visitors. Over the same period of time in 2012, that number was 122,000.

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