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Seriously, no time like the present for a rousing rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Nights and nights in the 20s. The garden is a mess and when I left the cut Christmas tree outside for one night and filled the red bucket with water, it froze solid as a hockey rink. Good thing we didn’t shell out for any front-porch poinsettias. Always hiccup on the poinsettia pronunciation ... poins easy, it’s the setia or setta part that’s the stumble.

 Anyone who is familiar with and enjoys Russian playwright Anton Checkhov’s work will become fascinated with the parallels of the characters in Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies’ homage to the writer with his play “The Country House.”

Many of us have wonderful memories of holidays and everything they represent. Our religious devotion, celebrating with family and friends and traditional foods are just a few things we hold in our hearts. One of my favorite Christmas food memories involves my dad when he was in college. I now share that story and the special recipe, which has been part of the Mariani family's Christmas meal for well over a century.

Every time I drive along state Route 1 between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, I can’t help but think of all the things I am surely missing. On one side, curious country roads – Gazos Creek Road, Bean Hollow Road – beckon as I pass by. On the other side, I know that one beach after another is hidden at the base of the cliff beyond the few cars parked at a succession of unmarked access points.

We’re at it again. The Morgan Hill Downtown Association will be luring what we hope is about 1,000 wine aficionados to the downtown to sample some of the finest of our land’s bounty in a glass (yes, you’ve heard me use that line before...).On Saturday, April 30 the “Original local Wine Stroll” is proud to have our finest downtown businesses host the best in local winemaking for what should be a repeat of the success of the previous events.What’s really exciting is we now have the biggest event yet, and it will feature some new activities for our  “Original Wine Stroll”—trying to make a great event just a little better.It was only a year ago that the local wineries were concerned that our Wine Stroll was not focusing on the best of the local wines because of the combination of compensation for their product, the number of tickets sold and the perceived low cost of the tickets.The Wine Stroll Committee listened to the Wine Association’s concerns and increased compensation, reduced the number of tickets sold by 250 and increased the price of the tickets.The reason we raised the ticket price was twofold. First, the price was low in comparison to that of other communities’ wine strolls. Second, we hoped that increasing the price would bring in a more discerning crowd who’d be more interested in sampling wine than seeing if they could consume 20-plus ounces of wine in four hours (that’s almost a bottle).We believe that our efforts paid off at last year’s event. The reduced ticket sales were almost offset by the increase in cost and we received positive comments about the crowd. It was different and perceived by many to be better, whatever that really means—I’ll take it.What was really heartening was to see a nearly complete reversal in attitudes of many of the wineries who now want to participate in our “Original Wine Stroll.” We ended up running out of merchant host locations and had to turn away wineries which we would have loved to include. We also now have the Wineries of Santa Clara Valley Wine Association as a sponsor, which helped in the event planning too.The special touches include shutting down the west end of Third Street to include the parking garage plaza in the event, and hosting an arts and crafts market. We will have an art competition hosted by the Morgan Hill Art Gallery, where we will select next year’s poster design from local artists’ submissions. Local musicians will set up on the corners to provide a nice background feel.And last but not least is the Wine and Food Week which starts April 24. We added food to this title because our local restaurants are really starting to stand out in the region for their menu offerings. This week of events will give restaurateurs an opportunity to shine with their special menus tailored around select local wines.  I hope you will find your way downtown during the Wine and Food Week where you can get a little closer to the winemakers. I also have to warn you to get tickets and make dinner reservations because this year’s events are already selling quickly.See you downtown!For more information, visit morganhilldowntown.org.John McKay is a Morgan Hill resident, board member of the Morgan Hill Downtown Association, city planning commissioner and co-founder of the Morgan Hill Tourism Alliance.

Lianne Marie Dobbs as Emma and Timothy Gulan as Mr. Knightley return in this radiant much demanded production of Jane Austen’s charming “Emma”. It was so highly lauded in TheatreWorks 2007 production season that it has returned in all of Robert Kelly’s directional glory as good as new if not better.