One of the success stories of the year - if you like fairly standard guitar-toting singer/songwriters.

This wonderful family Christmas play tells the story of young Maria who is helping her mum make tamales - a traditional Mexican Christmas treat - on Christmas Eve. When her mother takes off her diamond ring, Maria immediately slips it on even though she's told not to. Later she realises that the ring is missing and thinks that she has lost it in the tamales. She gets all her cousins to secretly help search for the ring by eating all the tamales. It's a funny, heart-warming lesson for everyone on temptation and forgiveness for the entire family based on the children's book by Gary Soto.

To some men in Russia, beer is still a soft drink not to be taken seriously. That attitude is changing but for beautiful beer turn to the only Belgian restaurant in Moscow, Monks and Nuns, which as well as various Belgian brews offers a menu liberally splashed with stews, sauces and soups prepared with beer. Naturally, Monks and Nuns stocks beer from one of the trappist monasteries that makes beer in Belgium. The second part of the name comes in the shape of waitresses dressed up as 18th-century nuns.

The Bar Downstairs from the Dendy Cinema - one of the few alternative venues left in town - has always been a reasonably priced place for some food, drink and pool shooting. Now it's going a bit clubby with Paper Scissors Rock spinning some breakbeat and house on Saturday night after 10.30pm. Wednesday night is Syncopation night with funky jazz from Mike Dotch and the Scientist, while Thursdays sees the salsa crowd move in and dance to old favourites.

This is one of the stops in the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra's year-long celebration tour of Louis Armstrong's 100th birthday, which will take the Kennedy Center stage under the leadership of trumpet master Wynton Marsalis. The Orchestra and Marsalis will dig into the vast musical life and songbook of Satch, from the fantastic early works with the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens to the pop stylings of his late career. Despite Marsalis' occasional displays of jazz snobbery, he has always blown a mean hot jazz horn. This should be a hot gig, too.

Any excuse to get out of town when it's steaming hot is a good one, and there are plenty of places for a cool retreat near Florence. Villa Demidoff at Pratolino, a half-hour bus ride north of the city, is such a spot. The villa itself - dating from the 16th-century - is a bit of a mess, but the enormous gardens are a rural delight. One marvels that has survived is Buontalenti's massive statue of the Appennino, a stone giant rising from a fountain. It's a great place for a picnic, and concerts are held in the summer months.

Marshall Field meets Harry Potter along State Street in a topical twist to an 80-year-old tradition. The traditional three-story Christmas tree at the flagship department store will be adorned in a Harry Potter theme, with 1,000 hand-carved and painted ornaments including Harry Potter's Nimbus Two Thousand broomstick, a potion bottle, Hedwig the owl and the Mirror of Erised. Meanwhile, the tale of 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' unfolds in 11 windows, with scenes that include life with the Dursleys, Hagrid and the Diagon Alley and Harry's arrival at the Christmas feast.