The Drop Everything List

MESQUITE

The Mesquite Championship Rodeo is one of the sport’s most accessible events. Thanks to brand new management of the 53-year-old affair, there’s plenty to take in besides actual rodeoing, including laser light shows, pyrotechnics, and Jumbotrons. There’s even a swanky bar, the 8-Second Club, where you can order more than just canned beer. At the heart of the spectacle, though, is some rough-and-tumble competition between the best in the business. The rodeo tests cowboys’ touch with roping, agility with barrel racing, and fearlessness in confronting two-thousand-pound raging bulls. Your heart will skip a beat at the feats of the clowns working the pale horses and pale riders. Their brushes with catastrophe are part of the fun—but if you think they’re brave, wait till you catch the Mutton Bustin’ competition, wherein boys and girls four years and older, and weighing no more than 55 pounds, hang on for dear life atop unruly sheep.
Resistol Arena, Dec 28 & 29, 7:30 p.m.
mesquiterodeo.com

HOUSTON

It took the movie Crazy Heart to thrust Ryan Bingham into the mainstream with his Academy Award–winning song “The Weary Kind.” Now Mr. Bingham’s buddy, Texas troubadour Hayes Carll, will have the same opportunity when two of his songs appear in Country Strong, the forthcoming singer-songwriter flick starring Gwyneth Paltrow and real-life country musician Tim McGraw. “Hard Out Here” and “Hide Me” reinforce an Americana equation of blues, folk, and country that worked well for Mr. Carll on his previous album, Trouble in Mind. The two songs are also on the Woodlands native’s forthcoming album, KMAG YOYO (& other American Stories), out February 15. The title is military speak for “kiss my ass, guys, you’re on your own,” but the opposite is true: Mr. Carll traded in his solo act for a four-piece band this time around. Tuesday night’s show is one of the first chances to hear the new songs live, as well as the album’s title cut, about a soldier in over his head in Afghanistan.
Warehouse Live, Dec 28, 9 p.m.
warehouselive.com

DALLAS

Check out the dossier on Remington when you go to the Belle Starre Carriages website to reserve a holiday carriage ride through tony Highland Park. He’s no ordinary Clydesdale: He reigned for a period as the world’s tallest living horse, measuring just over twenty hands—that’s about 6 feet, 8 inches tall. Weighing nearly three thousand pounds, he’s able to lug up to ten people on his “H.U.V.” (horse-drawn utility vehicle). But if Remington is an intimidating beast, he will guarantee that the well-to-do envy you more than you do them, especially after your tour guide dishes, as advertised, on all the juicy details of the Highland Park elite. Be prepared to do goofy stuff like wear foam rubber antlers and sing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” the 1979 Elmo Shropshire classic.
Highland Park, Dec 25–30, various times.
carriagetours.net

DALLAS

Bucks Burnett knows what he’s asking Santa for: $2,000. As of press time, that’s how much he still needed to raise to ensure the opening—on Christmas Day—of the Eight Track Museum, the home for his personal collection of more than three thousand of the clunky, bygone cartridges, including complete collections of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and the Beatles. About one thousand of his prized relics will be on display during the opening exhibit, “Conceived in Cars: Birth of the Eight Track 1965,” which comes fully equipped with vintage car stereo decks. Mr. Burnett, a 52-year-old Renaissance man who is president of the Tiny Tim Fan Club and formerly editor of the Mr. Ed Fan Club newsletter (as in the talking horse), remains optimistic Santa will deliver. “It’s sort of like Woodstock, where the festival nearly falls apart every ten minutes but somehow happens,” he said.
Eight Track Museum, Dec 25, 1 p.m.
eighttrackmuseum.org

EL PASO

The more people who attend “Fronterizos in Exile: A Reading of Border Writers and Expatriates,” the better the chance that it will turn into a full-on demonstration of the injustices of life on the U.S.-Mexico border—and that it could lead to actual change.
Loft Light Studio, Dec 29.
[email-hidden]

MARBLE FALLS

A three-course, wine-paired dinner and the Napa-esque ambience of cold, rain, and maybe even snow await as part of Christmas in the Vineyard at Flat Creek Estate, home to one of Food & Wine magazine’s 50 Most Amazing Wine Experiences in America.
Flat Creek Estate, Dec 24 & 26.
flatcreekestate.com

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