Welcome back to The Big To-Do. With Thanksgiving falling on the latest possible date, Christmas is jumping the gun — tree lightings and other celebrations start next week, and Snowport is already open in the Seaport. Before fall checks out, there’s football to be played: the Harvard-Yale game is Saturday in Allston, and your local high school is probably tuning up to renew a big rivalry on Thanksgiving morning.

Countless Thanksgiving celebrations will look sensational this year thanks to John Derian and his partnership with Target. The designer, who grew up in Watertown, bops around the East Village with Globe correspondent Gabriella Gage. “I’ve been in New York for 30 years,” he says. “But in a funny way, I never left Massachusetts. I’ll always be connected.”

And the arts and entertainment calendar is filling up faster than you can say “The parade’s on!” For advice on what to fit into your busy schedule, turn to the Globe’s experts.

Film & Movies

From left, Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda in "Wicked." UNIVERSAL PICTURES

“Wicked” is actually “Wicked: Part One” — and it’s longer than the whole Broadway show. “Champion belters” Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, as Galinda and Elphaba, “have enormous chemistry together,” Globe film critic Odie Henderson writes in a 2½-star review. “Stephen Schwartz’s songs are not for amateurs. What ‘Wicked’ does best is cast people who can sing them.”

“Silly is one way to describe ‘Gladiator II,’ but only [Denzel] Washington got the memo.” The “unnecessary and inferior” sequel gets 2 stars from Henderson, who writes, “[T]here are times when the story hews so closely to the original that the sequel plays more like a remake.” And a bold prediction: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Washington earned a deserved third Oscar for this role.”

Sahra Mani’s documentary “Bread & Roses” is “an act of resistance” against the Taliban, says executive producer Malala Yousafzai. “The Taliban want women in Afghanistan to be silenced,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner tells Globe correspondent James Sullivan, “and we, through making this documentary, want to make their voices louder and louder.”

The holiday movie “Merry Good Enough” stars Raye Spielberg, Sawyer Spielberg, and a wide swath of the Boston area. “Everyone in Boston opened their doors for us and the holiday spirit was alive and well while we shot it,” Sawyer Spielberg (son of Steven) tells the Globe’s Matt Juul. Says Raye Spielberg, “We loved being there so much.”

Speaking of holiday movies, John Hughes’s “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” (1987) belongs on your Thanksgiving schedule. Steve Martin stars with John Candy, playing the “big, jovial oaf” he’s stuck with on a trip from New York to Chicago. “A screening of this hilarious film would be appropriate as you settle in for your Turkey Day shenanigans,” says Henderson.

In Guatemalan culture, says director Jayro Bustamante, “ghosts are our ancestors, they are protecting us, guiding us.” His new horror film, “Rita,” about a catastrophic fire at an orphanage, “is a dark fantasy that hews true to real events but is pointed in its use of magical realism and surreal asides.,” writes Globe correspondent Joshua Rivera.

TV & Streaming

Ted Danson as Charles in "A Man on the Inside." COLLEEN E. HAYES/NETFLIX/COLLEEN E. HAYES/NETFLIX

The new Michael Schur sitcom, “A Man on the Inside,” stars Ted Danson — sitcom royalty on both sides of the camera. But the story of a retired professor investigating a theft at a retirement community “never quite comes together as a meaningful portrait,” writes the Globe’s Lisa Weidenfeld. “Danson is a preternaturally skilled television actor, but here he’s unfortunately much more muted.”

Three of the five “Dancing with the Stars” finalists have New England ties. Olympic gymnast and Worcester native Stephen Nedoroscik, Olympic rugby player and Vermont native Ilona Maher, and former Patriots wide receiver Danny Amendola will compete for the mirrorball trophy Tuesday. Globe correspondent Emily Wyrwa has a semifinal recap and a look ahead.

Family drama, workplace hijinks, and turkeys of every description propel some classic Thanksgiving TV episodes. “From dinner debacles and party fouls to funny flashbacks and epic food fights,” the Globe’s Matt Juul runs down 20 of the best episodes available to stream.

Made-for-TV holiday movie season started in October (no kidding), and it’s about to get serious. Globe correspondent Caroline Siede runs down “some of the biggest, buzziest, and just plain weirdest Christmas romances that will be debuting this season.” They include not one but two (still not kidding) movies inspired by Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s romance.

The Big Day

AbbeyRose Hillson and Jasper White married in her father's backyard in Scituate. MEG HERIOT

The Globe’s weddings column, The Big Day, tells stories of how couples found each other, fell in love, and said “I do.” This week’s couple, AbbeyRose Hillson and Jasper Paul White, were high school sweethearts who reconnected during the pandemic and eventually set an October wedding date. The invitations were on order when the groom’s father, famed chef Jasper White, died unexpectedly. The wedding, his son tells Globe correspondent Rachel Kim Raczka, “would be a way to remember and honor him.”

To apply to be featured, recently married and engaged couples (vow renewals and commitment ceremonies, too!) with ties to New England can click here for the application form.

Comedy

Gaffigan performing in Hulu's first comedy special. DISNEY/SEACIA PAVAO/DISNEY

Jim Gaffigan’s new special, “The Skinny,” marks the return of “a familiar and welcome presence.” Recorded in Boston, the show finds Gaffigan slimmed down — hence the title — and riffing on “food, family, religion, and whatever odd agitation the world is coughing up at the moment,” writes Globe reviewer Nick A. Zaino III. “[H]e’s very good at what he does, and it’s always good to spend an hour catching up.”

Eitan Levine’s live game show, “That’s So Jewish,” hits Boston next week. “It’s apolitical,” the New York-based comedian tells Zaino. “You’re able to go to ‘That’s So Jewish’ if you are a Hasidic dude from Borough Park, New York, or if you met a Jew once, and you’re from Provo, Utah.” This time around, two comedians and a rabbi will compete to be named “Most Chosen Person.”
   

Theater

Emma (Josephine Moshiri Elwood) dancing with Frank Churchill (Fady Demian) in Actors' Shakespeare Project's "Emma." NILE SCOTT STUDIOS

Kate Hamill’s “Emma” “can be a lot of fun if you yield to the spirit of the thing.” In the Actors’ Shakespeare Project production of the playwright’s latest take on Jane Austen, the cast animates “the show’s farrago of matches, mismatches, misunderstandings, and misplaced passions, laced with hidden agendas, belated revelations, and a couple of happily-ever-afters,” writes Globe theater critic Don Aucoin.

“Mindplay,” created and performed by “mentalist” Vinny DePonto, “makes a broad case for thinking about thinking.” The show relies on participation by audience members, “giving them at least partial power over the performance’s success or failure,” Aucoin writes. “Would that ‘Mindplay’ did a better job of connecting its own disparate parts — autobiographical narrative on one side, magic tricks on the other.”

As the title character in “Galileo’s Daughter,” Sandra Seoane-Serí delivers a “vividly alive performance.” Her scenes with Galileo (Diego Arciniegas) “are replete with an enjoyably palpable warmth.” But Aucoin finds the Central Square Theater-WAM Theatre coproduction a letdown because Jessica Dickey’s play introduces a fictional character, The Writer, whose “story line is much less compelling.”

Music

Folk singer-songwriter Anjimile is one of the transgender artists featured on “TRAИƧA.” SHERVIN LAINEZ

In 46 tracks, “TRAИƧA” puts on “a large-scale demonstration of support and trans representation.” The album includes a cover of TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me” by Anjimile, Globe correspondent Victoria Wasylak writes for Sound Check. Says the ex-Bostonian, “I was once a closeted trans youth, and I think that if I was 16 and one of my favorite artists participated in this compilation ... I would be really excited.”

Museums & Visual Art

Corinne Wasmuht, "50 U Heinrich-Heine-Str.," 2009. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE/THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS

Books

Need a gift idea for the book lovers in your life? Check out these titles. MAR HERNANDEZ FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Today's newsletter was written by Marie Morris and produced by the Globe Living/Arts staff. Marie Morris can be reached at marie.morris@globe.com. Thanks for reading.

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