HOLIDAY THEATER REVIEWS: Theatre Arlington trades in the usual simple sentimentality of the season for a show  with depth in Kringle’s Window. The play focuses on a broken family working through some difficult relationships. “It achieves sweetness without dipping into the sugar bowl too often and balances its pathos and humor nicely,” writes Punch Shaw in his dfw.com review … WaterTower Theatre takes a trip back to the 50s and 60s with the Forever Plaid: Plaid Tidings. The show is full of the harmonies of those days, but Lawson Taitte says the singing is lacking. “Director Doug Miller and Mark Mullino have hired performers who sometimes individually pull off a decent number. As a group, however, they lack the control of pitch and the ability to blend that make this kind of music,” he writes in his dallasnews.com review. … One Thirty Productions gets the music right in the bluegrass tinged Sanders Family Christmas. “The stories are charming and the toe-tapping songs beautifully sung,” says Mark Lowry on theaterjones.com. “Even more impressive is the fact that the instruments are played onstage by the cast.” … Meanwhile, the jokes are lame, but the songs are solid in Dallas Summer Musical’s Christmas With the Rat Pack. Cathy O’Neal reviews for theaterjones.com. … And while you’ve possibly already seen Dallas Theater Center’s A Christmas Carol in years past, you’ve never seen it with Sean Hennigan as Scrooge. “His reclamation at the end of the play is the most moving I’ve ever seen onstage – over-the-top and real at the same time,” according to Lawson Taitte on dallasnews.com.

IN-TOWN TECH: It probably won’t surprise you to learn that only Seattle and San Francisco are home to more video game developers than Austin. But you might not know that North Texas is quickly becoming a base for the industry, too. Several developers – Terminal Velocity, id Software, Gearbox Software – are based here, and now those companies can be fed with home-grown talent. SMU offers a competitive masters program in video game development, and UTA is also building a program. Fort Worth Weekly checks in on the area’s college programs in this week’s cover story and finds a place where creativity, artistry and technology meet.

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK: Quickdfw.com has a new regular feature called Dead Beat that covers the local hard-rock scene. If that scene is your scene, then be sure to check out this recent interview with Dallas True Widow and this post on Maleveller. (On a related note: Maleveller’s Jeffrey Biehler clearly has the greatest mustache in rock.)