Good morning, fellow travelers, and congrats on this triumphant stretch of sunshine after the truly dizzying rollercoaster of storms last week. A three-round “combination atmospheric river and low-pressure system,” to be exact! (Full storm recap below.) We also now find ourselves floating in that precious, once-a-year liminal space between Christmas and New Year’s, when time seems to go off-grid and the astral plane feels so close you can almost touch it. (Zat you, Santa Claus?) Fitting, then, that this week’s local event log is even more lightweight than the last. Could be a good opportunity to slow down, hang back and be super deliberate with your commitments — or even bow out of the marketplace entirely, for a full-on astral journey through your own rich inner world of fantasies and fascinations. Your call! But if you do decide to stay here in the land of the living, these are some of the marvelous events gracing our calendar this time around:

But first! Here’s where I do my usual song-and-dance about how you should keep telling everyone you know about this newsletter, so that we as a community can go forth into the new year as one big, united, highly informed blob of Healdsburgians. You can send people this link to subscribe. (Or just forward them this email, so they can click the link themselves.) Thanks so much for all your help out there, as we spread the gospel far and wide… 🕊️

The Villa’s still got it! Our historic community event space, built along Fitch Mountain’s northwestern slope in 1910 as a country resort for French elite from the city, was recently named best local wedding venue in the Healdsburg Tribune’s annual “Best of Healdsburg” reader poll for 2025. This, after the Villa Chanticleer underwent hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovations over the past couple of years, as part of a unique partnership between the City of Healdsburg and the Milestone Events Group. (Every last nook and cranny of the 17-acre, indoor-outdoor Villa grounds have gotten a total glow-up; see pics here.) When the coveted “Best of” award was announced last month, the venue’s new managers wrote in a message to the community: “The Villa has been a place of love, celebration, and connection for generations, and thanks to you, that legacy lives on. We can’t wait to welcome you back and create the next chapter of cherished memories!”

Indeed, the public has been taking notice. Weekends in 2026 are getting booked up fast, according to venue managers, with “only a handful of peak-season Saturdays” still available for 2026 — so if you’re eying the Villa as your dream venue, make sure to grab a date before they’re gone. This is the perfect spot to host a big party that still feels cozy and intimate — not just weddings, but also reunions, birthdays, anniversaries, meetings, memorials and other gatherings. And even now that it looks like a million bucks, the Villa is still one of the most affordable options around; you can check out pricing here. Also, keep in mind that Healdsburg residents get an extra 20% off the usual prices! Learn more and book your next event on the Villa Chanticleer website. 🥂

Usually I save your regular weather update for the newsy version of the newsletter, not the event log, but… that one is still a few days shy of completion, and we need to talk about what just happened, stat. Such a whirlwind of storms we endured this past week! The Press Democrat is calling it “a wild period of Christmas weather for the North Bay that included extraordinary tornado warnings and thunderstorms, a rarity in the region for this time of year.” We didn’t end up with an actual tornado on our hands, but we did get pummeled by three very dramatic bouts of wind and rain over Christmas week, one after another — making for hourslong PG&E power outages in the Dry Creek Valley on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; flooded rural roads that led to closures and heroic trapped-driver rescues; and tons of fallen trees all over the place, including a massive one that totaled two cars parked at 701 University St. and an oak branch that crushed part of the holiday display in the Healdsburg plaza. (Yet somehow I haven’t seen any reports of anyone injured in our area during all this, thank heavens.) Scroll down for storm pics!

One neighborhood rain gauge set up just south of Fitch Mountain shows we got nearly 9 inches of rain between Friday, Dec. 19, and Friday, Dec. 26. And up where I live in the hills west of town, our gauge topped 10 inches. Wind gusts, meanwhile, reportedly hit 60-70 mph in moments; my house groaned and rattled like I’ve never heard it. Combined with the creaky frog choir that took up residency in my swamp of a swimming pool — letting out a “steady high-pitched chant” throughout the ordeal, as one Windsor resident said of her own backyard choir — it really was a dark ’n’ stormy rock opera for the ages. (I was also up late each night reading the Dickens classic “A Christmas Carol” by flickering firelight, which only added to the spooky, Scroogey theatrics of it all. My cousin Emma, too — of the extended Wilson clan down in San Francisco — wrote in her newsletter that the city’s big pre-Christmas blackout was basically her holiday dream come true. “Other people can wring their hands all they want,” she said. “I maintain it was magical and marvelous.”)

Anyway, looking ahead, we should get a chance to recoup and dry out for the next few days, before rain starts to creep back into the forecast again for New Year’s. Here’s what to expect and when, according to the National Weather Service:

And here are some scenes from the crazy week we just lived through…