Photos by Samantha Jane Beatty
Styling by Todd Ramos
Model Jerry Raines for Neal Hamil Agency
Grooming by Briana Dai
Photography assistance by John Lewis
Styling assistance by Tyler Treadwell
Shot on location at The Barn at Four Pines Ranch in Crosby
Gingerbread Dream at Moxies
Peppermint Vodka Hot Chocolate and Hot Apple Cider at 8th Wonder
Nothing says holiday cheer like a pint of hot apple cider — find this, along with peppermint hot chocolate with vodka and seasonal draft beer, at 8th Wonder!
Fig Is Up at Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse
With locations on Washington Ave. and Montrose Blvd., Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse has 10 fun holiday cocktails for everyone in town. The Fig Is Up ($13) features fig-infused bourbon, fig syrup and candied fig or the ultra-boozy George Washington's Aged Christmas Eggnog ($13) made with cognac, rye whiskey, sherry, Jamaican pot still rum, milk, heavy cream, eggs, sugar, nutmeg and is whipped by hand.
The still-new Montrose haunt is offering Peppermint Espresso Martinis at a price that would make Frosty melt with envy. Try the cocktail for just 99 cents from 3-6pm on weekdays. Or try the Instagram-worthy red-and-green colored Mistletoe Matcha.
French Velvet at Doris Metropolitan
Add extra pep to any holiday shopping excursion at Doris with the French Velvet ($18) made with cold brew liqueur, espresso and… absinthe! Or, the Milk Punch ($19) made with Heaven’s Door Double Barrel and an oh-so-festive cereal infusion.
Holiday Cocktails at FM Kitchen
FM Kitchen is stocked with seasonal draft beers, in addition to their holiday take on the old fashioned, Rebel Without A Clause, and a festive twist on a Moscow Mule: Cran Spice & Everything Nice.
Hey, it may be December, but it’s still Texas! Fuzzy’s is celebrating the season with a frozen lime margarita with a strawberry swirl and a dunked black-cherry White Claw.
Apple Pie Tom & Jerry at Hamsa
Get out of the cold at Hamsa with their boozy hot chocolate or Chai Hot Buttered Rum: butter batter topped with rum and housemade chai. For a creative (and served cold) cocktail try the Apple Pie Tom & Jerry, made of rum egg batter topped with cognac and milk.
Peanut Butter Old Fashioned
Snuggle up at this heights hangout as the bar plays Christmas movies all month — with a side of tableside s’mores. Get extra jolly with the Peanut Butter Old Fashioned made with house-infused peanut butter bourbon, angostura & orange bitters or the Gingerbread Negroni with house-spiced gin, cardamom, red vermouth, bitters.
Spiked Hot Cocoa at Julep
The Washington Ave. hotspot — which won the 2022 James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program — is decked out in picture-perfect decor for the holidays. Julep is offering Spiked Hot Cocoa ($16) made with vodka and topped with a marshmallow and the Apple Snap Julep ($16) with applebutter washed Bourbon and gingerbread syrup.
Peppermint Mocha Martini at Moxies
Is a dessert-worthy cocktail on your Christmas list? The Gingerbread Dream at Moxies is topped with fresh whipped cream and a ginger snap. Also on the menu, the Old Fashioned Christmas with bourbon, orange bitters and cranberry simple syrup and the Peppermint Mocha Martini with Caffè Borghetti, vodka and white crème de cacao.
The Ponche Navideño ($12) at Ninfa’s is a tequila-based fruit punch made with a traditional blend offresh and dried fruits like tamarind, prunes, and hibiscus and sweetened with the rich flavors of Piloncillo.
Mistletoe Margarita at Private Client
No reservations required for this hidden new cocktail lounge in EaDo. Check out their festive menu of six holiday cocktails including the Gingerbread Whiskey Sour with bourbon, lemon, honey, cinnamon and vanilla and the Reindeerita made with tequila, Grand Marnier, lime, apple cider and maple syrup.
The Mistletoe Martini (photo by Raydon Creative)
The Warwick has you covered for the cooler days this year with Sweater Weather ($12), its house made hot cider and whiskey concoction. Plus, don’t miss the Mistletoe Martini ($18) — a vodka martini with raspberry lemonchello and cranberry.
The Big Casino
Get your camera ready for one of the many spots in H-Town hosting over-the-top Christmas cheer this season. Johnny’s Gold Brick, Winnie’s, Galveston’s Daiquiri Time Out and The Big Casino are offering 90-minute reservations in their nostalgic Christmas wonderlands.
A detail of 'Harbor Nest' by Collins
The watercolors in Coastal Gardens portray the uneasy existence between the natural world and manmade industry, and on one level, can be viewed as studies for Collins’ large-scale oil paintings. “I pour loads of time into these smaller, little jewels,” says Collins. “There’s something really exciting about how the watercolor can be so small, and have enough information packed in for a large-sized oil painting.” But there is an unsettling quality to each of these meticulously realized miniatures as if a fuzzy memory or portent of the future has materialized before your eyes. (The working title of the show was Chemical Gardens.)
In conversation, Collins speaks about art with what one imagines was the same level of enthusiasm he exhibited growing up as an only child in a three-bedroom home on Drexel Street and watching his parents, both practicing artists, making things. Each room in the house opened up into a garden filled with garcinias, philodendrons, and bromeliads — plants Collins would draw with Crayola crayons. The imagined vegetation in Coastal Gardens harkens back to this childhood subtropic existence, as well as memories of fishing with his father on the banks of the Texas City coastline, where they observed the beauty of nature on one side of the water and foreboding chemical plants on the other. In a catalog of his works published in 2009, Collins writes: “As I child, I was naive as to the conflict of nature versus man, enjoying those moments only as cherished experiences with my father. Growing older, I grew more and more concerned with man and nature’s conflicts.”
And yet, as it is in all of Collins’ paintings, there is a light that never goes out; the flora and fauna in his watercolors are alive and growing, creeping into the ruins of industry and chemical wastelands. “The visions that I’ve had are certainly cautionary,” says Collins. “I think we can certainly decide to do certain things that will help the planet, but the more time that goes by, I believe art has to ask the question, ‘Where are we in all of this?’”
'Bound In My Chemical Garden II'
'Coastal Rails'
'Bound In My Chemical Garden II'
'Turning Basin'