The MUG Event Calendar for December 17: Andy Ihnatko, Don Peebles and George Cook of Apple, Dan Wood of Karelia and Holiday Parties Galore

The week before the busy holiday week will be filled with last minute shopping in your neighborhood and plenty of great meetings and holiday celebrations on The MUG Event Calendar.

The guest speaker category is busy this week, with Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times and MacNotables speaking in Connecticut, Don Peebles of Apple, presenting to a Final Cut Pro group in Massachusetts and George Cook of Apple, showing off podcasting to a campus group in Utah. Dan Wood of Karelia will be the guest at a California group, and Tricia Davis of The Art Institute will speak to a student group in Massachusetts.

While there are demos of iChat and iWork, Bento from Filemaker, Windows on the Mac, Leopard and internet security on the agenda, the vast majority of the week’s activities are party-oriented, with groups from Ohio to Omaha, Pennsylvania to Colorado and all points in between celebrating the holidays with their Mac friends.

Help us celebrate what your group does every month of the year the same way MacInside does: Email your group’s meeting information to The MUG Center as soon as you have your topic scheduled and we’ll add it to our weekly Briefing and to The MUG Event Calendar, the most comprehensive listing of Mac User Group activities on the web.

This week’s complete listings include: