In this week’s Around Town column, read about the Holiday Train, a graphic novel for your marriage and a retiring ranger.

BRINGING HOLIDAY CHEER … Marking the start of the holiday season, Caltrain’s 2023 Holiday Train will be returning to town on Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 2 and 3. Part of Caltrain’s annual toy drive, the Holiday Train will make 10 different stops at nine different stations around the Peninsula over the two days — Redwood City, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Millbrae, Burlingame, San Mateo, Menlo Park and San Francisco. The stops will last 20 minutes each, with carolers and the Salvation Army Christmas Brass Ensemble onboard to sing to attendees.

“Santa, Mrs. Claus and their extended family — including Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer — will get off the train to greet kids and pose for pictures,” the Caltrain press release states. The Holiday Train has been a Bay Area tradition for roughly 20 years. Caltrain is encouraging attendees to bring new toys or books to donate to children and families in need, as part of a partnership with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program and the Salvation Army. Attendees can expect to see the train decorated with more than 75,000 glittering lights, and there will be free entertainment at each of the stops, according to Caltrain.

POWER RANGER … Since Daren Anderson joined Palo Alto in 1999 as a park ranger, his duties have included enhancing the city’s open space preserves, saving stranded and injured wildlife and, on one occasion, helping rescue 22 children whose boat was stuck in the Baylands mud with the tide rising. He recalled this week another occasion in which a car ended up in the marsh after a driver put it in the wrong gear and it jumped out of the parking lot and into the mud. One of the two occupants was pregnant and couldn’t swim, he said. He and another ranger took the canoe to the car to try to get the occupants out. “I was telling her, ‘Be really careful: You’ve got to get right on the center of the canoe,’ and she said, ‘Yeah, yeah, no problem!’ and then she sat right on the edge. We were just centimeters from tipping that canoe and it was a miracle we got them both out without going for a swim,” Anderson recalled on Nov. 29, during a presentation in front of the Parks and Recreation Commission.

For Anderson, the meeting spelled the end of his career with the city. He retired this week as assistant director of the Community Services Department, a position from which he played a role in crafting, changing and participating in dozens of parks and recreation programs – everything from dog parks to pickleball courts. His favorite part of the job, he said, was leading canoe rides in the Baylands during a full moon. “Those were a really special way of sharing an open space experience, seeing it in a different way and sharing that with my community,” he said. The commission thanked Anderson for his quarter century of service to the community and praised him for the diligence, integrity and passion he brought to his work. Commissioner Anne Cribbs lauded him for always welcoming diverse views in a “very cheerful and positive manner.” “Your work and your legacy will live on in Palo Alto for a very long time,” she said.

A BETTER MARRIAGE … Marriage counseling can take a variety of forms — talk therapy, self-help books, group counseling and more. But Chandrama Anderson, a Bay Area-based licensed marriage and family therapist who writes a Palo Alto Online blog called “Couple’s Net,” is trying something new: a graphic novel. The book, “I Do I Don’t: How to build a better marriage,” is written by Anderson and illustrated by the cartoonist Nur Jaffar G. Latip. Described as “graphic therapy,” Anderson’s novel follows the story of Ben and Grace, a couple navigating various issues in their marriage.

“The book makes use of visual cues including coloured word balloons to emphasize emotional states to make complicated concepts more understandable,” a press release states. “Each chapter ends with ‘Put It Into Practice,’ a set of worksheets that parallel the homework set for Ben and Grace by the therapist.” Anderson plans to post one page of her book each weekday on Couple’s Net, not so different from a daily comic — except this one dispenses daily relationship advice. “’I Do I Don’t’ will teach you specific tools, techniques and principles from neuroscience, attachment theory and other therapeutic methods,” Anderson wrote in her latest blog post. She’s also providing a free companion workbook and reader discussion guide, so readers can follow along as she posts panels from her book.