We are still looking for submissions for our Last Minute Local Gift Guide to encourage people to shop local when they're making their final holiday purchases. Know of any great local businesses we should be sure not to miss? Reply to this email, tag them in this Instagram post, or text us at 612-204-2887.

The Met Council will meet tonight at 7 PM to interview candidates to become the new representative in District 6 (which covers all of Southwest west of Lyndale and the surrounding suburbs).

The list of candidates and information on how to watch is here. Henry Pan will be live tweeting the interviews from our Twitter account if you want to follow along.

Don't know what the Met Council is? They're a regional planning body that makes some really consequential decisions on transportation, affordable housing, and infrastructure. We'll be putting together a larger piece soon explaining who they are, what they do, and why they're important.

Last night, the City Council voted to pass the amended city budget 9-4, with Council Members Ellison, Bender, Gordon, and Cunningham voting no.

The majority of the public comments at the final public session last night focused on the Police Department budget, which will go up by about $27 million from last year (here's our look from yesterday at why that will mean more officers than today but likely fewer than 2019).

LINK ROUNDUP

Eater Twin Cities is out with their yearly awards and Kingfield's Petite León won the award for best new bar. (Eater)

An oral history of Jingle All The Way, 25 years later. Includes a bunch of interesting details, both about shooting in Linden Hills and not: "Then we went back to L.A. to shoot all our interiors, and the parade which was shot on Universal’s backlot. Originally they wanted to shoot it in Minneapolis, but you can’t shut down a street for five weeks to shoot something. So we were on the backlot in July with people dressed for Minneapolis in December. We had 1,400 extras, and I think 50 of ‘em fainted because they were overheated—it was 90-plus degrees." (Racket)

GET INVOLVED

The Nokomis Chiropractic team at 54th and Lyndale is running a toy drive through December 20th.

Remember to fill out the city's survey on traffic calming measures before it closes at the end of December.

STUFF TO DO

Photographic artist Dayanita Singh is hosting a virtual event to discuss an alternative history of photography with Mia from 12:00 - 1:00 this afternoon on Zoom.

Third Space Cafe and Ridwell are hosting trivia and a holiday light drop-off to deposit your old lights (and get $5 off!) tonight from 5:00 - 6:30.

Here's a schedule of all of the events hosted by the Park Board through the end of December. In the next week, they'll be hosting gingerbread house construction projects at Kenny and Lyndale Farmstead.