Pie Social
It’s that time of year again when you loosen your belt a notch and prepare for all the delicious meals that come along with the holidays. And like any fine skill, the Olympian level of eating you’ll do requires practice. Enter Pie Social 2016. For the seventh year in a row, Roosevelt Row CDC and New Times will present downtown’s best holiday primer from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, November 19, at Phoenix Union Bioscience High School, 512 East Pierce Street. Arrive in your stretchiest pants and sample pies from 15 celebrity chefs vying for the people’s-choice vote. Maybe take this opportunity to try out your newest pie recipe, too. If you bring two pies, you’ll get five tasting tickets. Otherwise, it’s $12 for five tasting tickets. Take in live music, shop the artisan market, and most important, pig out on pie. For more info, see facebook.com/events/729582340513684. Evie Carpenter

A Very Javelina Holiday
What makes the Three Little Pigs little? Pigs are rather large animals, really — they’re just tipped down onto the horizontal axis, unlike us upright-walking freaks of nature. Perhaps the pigs were little as in “young,” despite their precocious construction skills. The pigs are definitely children in the popular kids’ book The Three Little Javelinas by local author Susan Lowell.

The peccary siblings’ tripartite saga continues in A Very Hairy Javelina Holiday, brought to us by Childsplay in a musical stage version through Sunday, December 24. The play is recommended for people 5 and older.

Get ready to squeal at Tempe Center for the Arts, 700 West Rio Salado Parkway. Tickets start at $12 at childsplayaz.org or 480-350-2822. Showtime on Sunday, November 20, is 1 p.m. Julie Peterson