Best Bets: Tet Vietnamese New Year, ‘The Sex Lives of Puppets,’ Kyle Abraham and A.I.M, all-Beethoven performance, pianist George Harliono

Freebie of the week: This week marks the arrival of Tet Nguyen Dan, better known as Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. It’s considered the most important holiday in Vietnamese culture, and is celebrated in a variety of events and functions around the Bay Area, often falling in the same general timeframe as other cultures’ Lunar New Year events. One of the biggest and best-known Tet celebrations in the Bay Area takes place Friday through Sunday in San Jose’s Eastridge Center. Presented by UStar Productions, the large and festive annual celebration serves up an eye-popping array of entertainment and activities, including lucky money and gift exchanges, lion dancing, a student singing contest, a Miss Vietnam California pageant, a fashion show, performances by K-pop dance groups with their otherworldly choreography, carnival rides, 3-D theme parks for photo ops, and much more. There will also be a wide variety of food and drink on hand. The event runs from 3 to 10 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Eastridge; admission is free and there is plenty of parking at the shopping center. More information is at facebook.com/UStarProductions.

Strings attached: In a world full of strife, violence, suffering and natural and human-born calamities, we feel better just knowing that there’s a show out there titled “The Sex Lives of Puppets.” And it doesn’t change our minds a bit knowing that neither the title nor this show, which runs through Saturday at Stanford University, is being played strictly for laughs. Like sex itself, the stage show created and performed by London-based troupe Blind Summit is about a lot of things. And, as organizers put it, “Sex Lives of Puppets” ranges from funny to insightful to poignant. After all, it gets pretty complicated when you are in an amorous way yet your immediate future is literally in someone else’s hands. The show also offers an intriguing look at how puppetry is used to showcase and explore such emotions as angst, desire, fear, joy and more. As for the storyline, it is inspired by the U.K.’s National Survey of Sexual Attitude and Lifestyles, which sounds about as sexy as a Three Stooges marathon. But you can’t fault Blind Summit for its overall goal — to deliver an entertaining show that creates a safe forum for a look at sex and all its fantastic and frightening manifestations. Performances are at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday at Stanford’s The Studio venue; tickets are $75.60, with student and Stanford employee discounts available. Go to live.stanford.edu.