Jennifer Susannah Devore's Blog, page 13
February 11, 2013
R2D2, Slave Leias and WonderCon: Happy Valentines Day!
Cheers, kittens! It's Moi, your Hannah Hart, ghostdame of the Hotel del Coronado! I imagine scads of you are reading on your devices whilst trapped amongst the winter remnants of Nor'easter Nemo. Ergo, I shall spare you the complaints of how chilly it is here in San Diego, in February: 56 with a low of 43! Of course, being a ghost, I'm always cold: sunny beach weather or no. (New to this ghostdame concept? My bio will get you up to speed.)
Well, if you're a geek in love and whether snowbound in Beantown or surfside in Solana Beach, chances are kippy you're focused on one of two things right now: Valentines Day and/or WonderCon. Should you be for
tunate enough to live in Southern California, my Hotel Del, in this year of their 125th anniversary, is hosting the Sweetheart Ball for a mere $125.00/person for dance floor-flanked dining: $100.00/person for the rest of the Crown Room. Get out the red lipstick, your swishiest beaded skirt and those dancing heels, all you hot tomatoes! The Fox Trot is where it's at this year!
As for WonderCon (Anaheim Convention Center, March 29-31, 2013), if you're uninitiated, it's a comic book and pop culture convention similar to Comic-Con International, but smaller, earlier and sans the Gigantor schwag bags. Numbers? According to Publisher's Weekly, approximately 40K 2012 WonderCon attendees vs. some 130K for SDCC. Historically a San Francisco-based event that prides itself on being more musty comic books than shiny vinyl girls, it has been moved down to Anaheim for a couple of years to wait out refurbishing of it's true home, Moscone Center. Planning to head NorCal way once again for 2014, we SoCal geeks are lucky enough to get it one more time this year! It's a gentle, warming ease into our wackadoo SDCC, like walking gingerly into a mellow surf, as opposed to trouncing into a rough shore break and getting splashed right in your bits and pieces in one go. To boot, it's walking-distance to Disneyland!
Are you a Northerner missing your WonderCon? Been dying to go, but never get around to it? Curious about why anybody would want to go? No worries, cats! Our very own Dr. Lucy and I will be onsite and covering it for GoodToBeAGeek.com, live from the floor, just for you: Tweets, snaps, gossip and bonkers costumes, all for your enjoyment! If you wonder how well two Cali ghost girls can narrate just such an event, have a peek at our recounting of 2012 San Diego Comic-Con.
Should you kids have anything or anyone specific you'd love us to seek an' snap, query, interview or just plain stalk at Wondercon, let us know! Tweet us @GoodToBeAGeek, @JennyPopNet or @Eslilay. Lucy shall be at the ready with her EOS Canon Digital Rebel XT and I with my trusty Waterman, analog journal and Android devices. Whilst the guest list isn't quite as lengthy as SDCC, there is quality in this condensed version: Jane Espenson (Firefly, Buffy, Once Upon a Time), Dean Koontz (legendary horror novelist) Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell (fantasy artist team extraordinaire) just to name a few. In addition, if you're whacky for Superman, WonderCon is proud to announce the exclusive, world-premiere of DC Universe's animated flick, Superman: Unbound!
Though it may be on a smaller scale than SDCC, it seems costuming and cosplay are as necessary as ever at WonderCon and Lucy and I shall be joining in the fun. Lucy's going steampunk again, this time with a wild and cheeky rum-powered top hat. (Yes, you read that correctly!) Moi? No clue, kittens. Check back in March. Hot pink bunny ears might be playing a role, though. Slave Leia is always an option; yet, that might be better suited for the warmer and sunnier climes of Comic-Con in July. Of course, for all you brassy broads with gorgeous getaway sticks, Leia in chains can go a long way in taking the traditional ennui out of St. Valentine's Day. Zowie!
Right-o, off to brainstorm some Valentine haunts with Lucy. Nothing's more romantic than some friendly, midnight, ghostly frights for the guests amidst the hallowed hotel halls of my historic Hotel del Coronado!
Abyssinia, kids!
January 25, 2013
Powdered Wigs, Frock Coats and Hamster Techno: Bravo, KIA
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No Voltaire-styled, Twain-pithed or New Yorker-length posts here today. Simply a bit of fabulous, a smattering of so many things I love, all rolled into one savvy and styling auto advert: Rococo style, 18thC. sartorial flair, classical ballet, Baroque opera, a thumping techno beat, silk mules and, if you know my writings well, anthropomorphic animals in Vogue-worthy vestments.
Bravo, Kia Soul! Your funky, furry, Hail Fellows Well Met might get me into a Soul yet: black, to be sure. To boot, this is just the kicking beat I need to light that Sun King-caliber firework under my tapestry-festooned panier to keep working on Book IV of my Savannah of Williamsburg Series of historical-fiction novels: Savannah of Williamsburg: Washington's Folly and The French & Indian War, Virgina 1755.
Amusez-vous bien, mes amis!
January 15, 2013
Freedom IS Free! Happy Birthday, Mr. Franklin!
[image error]It's Ben Franklin's birthday, kids, and I'm giving you a little freedom, for free of course! Savannah of Williamsburg: Ben Franklin, Freedom & Freedom of the Press is free for Kindle: only on Thursday, January 17th! Mark the date!
That Benjamin Franklin was one prolific cat! Inventor, printer, entrepreneur, politician, writer, community leader, social organizer, coffee lover, lady lover, possible-privateer, all-around Good Time Charlie and ... maybe even a secret element behind the Freedom of the Press we so take for granted? Maybe so!
Thursday, I give you the tale for free: Savannah of Williamsburg: Ben Franklin, Freedom & Freedom of the Press, Book III in my Savannah of Williamsburg historical-fiction series. (Read the original, official, Colonial Williamsburg press release here.)
Set in Philadelphia, New York and Colonial Williamsburg, the third in the series finds a young, Swedish printer's apprentice named Linus amidst one of the greatest trials in human histo
ry: the John Peter Zenger Trial. Add one great Scot of an attorney named Andrew Hamilton, a nasty and arrogant New York/New Jersey Royal Governor William Cosby, a secret weapon, a new twist on onus probandi and one stunning, shocking verdict of "Not Guilty" and you've got the trial that changed the course of American journalism and conferred upon us the all too important Freedom of the Press.
Don't let the poncy squirrel in a frock scare you, nor the tavern cat, French court Pom or Venetian fox-turned-thespian. The thousands of readers and scholars who have made Savannah of Williamsburg: Ben Franklin, Freedom & Freedom of the Press #88 in Amazon's Law Fiction/Legal Perspectives genre can't be wrong. Let Linus, my Squirrel Girl and John Peter Zenger share with you one of the cornerstones of our great democracy.
Read on, keep up, write oft and speak out, people!
January 2, 2013
Fluff Up Your Vagina Pillows: Portlandia S3 is Here!
The Holidays have come and gone. The gift cards have been defrayed with frightening speed and, for some of us, Comic-Con is still a staggering seven months away. What's a creative spirit to do in the grey bane of post-gifting, post-cocktail Winter? Prepare for Season 3 of Portlandia on IFC, of course. Get ready to get your Pacific Northwest-weird on, America!
From weird to Wired frames-of-reference, Primetime Emmy Awards-nominated and Gracie Allen Awards-winning Portlandia proffers an Übermodern vaudeville steeped in a homey and comforting grey and rainy respite of Northwestern coffee culture and smells just slightly of a musty vintage shop. Amidst a television culture of all-too-shiny, all-too-sparkly drama and desperate, hacky, wannabe comedy usually set in New York or L.A., Portlandia scratches an itch that one can only get from wearing the same rarely-cleaned, wool, REI sweater too many days in a row. (Apropos to NYC/LA: Producers, enough with where you live. We love landing at LAX and JFK, too; but there are other population centers across this vast country. Get out once in a while.)
Depending on your sphere of comedy, Portlandia will range from side-splitting cackles to bemused snorts. Like an Anne Rice novel, a bottle of red or seasons 1-6 of Family Guy, even the worst of the bunch is still better than just about anything else in your purview. A hybrid of American and Canadian sketch comedy pacing, British story and character oddity, plus off-the-beaten-path travelogues, Portlandia serves up a grande porcelain cup of soy-frothed satire and schtick. Everything, from vegetarian dumpster dining, to hipper-than-thou thrift store clerks, to dog park etiquette, to gender-neutral booksellers, to Supa kawaii -Japan's obsession with the super cute/super tiny- gets the snarky treatment. It's a beautiful thing. Be ye a Renaissance Faire geek, a SciFi freak, a hippie poetess, a steampunk tinkerer, a vintage glam girl, a psychobilly crooner, a Jack White stalker or a power-lib Ivy Leaguer, Portlandia will tickle something on you, somewhere.
Special treats include the occasional, surprise guest star, including Patton Oswalt, Jim Gaffigan, Jack McBrayer and Jeff Goldblum.
Already a fan? All apologies for preaching to the non-denominational c
hoir. If not? Acquaint yourself pronto with the locally-sourced, dye-free, organic, vegan stylings of Arminsen & Brownstein, co-creators and -stars. Seasons 1 & 2 are available on Netflix Instant. You could also take a wee break from your pre-recycling activities of chipping the dried cheese off your pizza box and rinsing your Parmalat milk box and sample some tapas-sized clips of Portlandia here, courtesy of IFC. Have even more time because you quit your job and you're makin' jewelry now? Play at the whole site for a while and even take a tour of Portland with Kumail Nanjiani (frequent guest star) to find IRL inspirations for some of the show's sketches ... including America's only all-vegan strip club! Colour me there!
So, get your Battlestar Galactica marathons out of the way, brew some Fair Trade Kopi Luwak Indonesian cat coffee and fluff up your vagina pillows ... it's time for Portlandia, Season 3!
"The modern world's gone all off track, but you can escape it all in Portland. It's the dream of the 1890s in Portland."
-Portlandia, S2E5
S3 Premiere on IFC Friday, January 4 @ 10/9C
Starring: Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein
Director: Jonathan Krisel
Production company: Broadway Video Entertainment
Distribution: IFC, Netflix and Umbrella Entertainment
Writers: Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein, Jonathan Krisel, Karey Dornetto, Allison Silverman, Bill Oakley
The Darlings of Orange County: New Year's Ad Campaign 2013, Part I
Fresh from the art department once again, The Darlings of Orange County 2013 New Year's ads, Part 1: "Downright Filthy" & "Leaking Silicone".
Look for the ads, along with "Meet Pardo" wherever you surf, online or otherwise!
December 12, 2012
An Open Christmas Card to Nordstrom, Grand Silver Dame of the Northwest
An open Christmas greeting to Nordstrom, in Haiku form:
Grand Dame of the North
Nordstrom brings festive Christmas
Thank you, Seattle!
See, this is why I'm a novelist and not a poet. Iambic pentameter penschmatemer. Twitter and it's 140 hardline, btw, is killing me. I don't do brief, as many of you well know.
Anyhoo, après chatting with a Nordstrom representative named Renee, via their Live Chat, trying to nail down a package with no UPS information, I thought about how friendly Miss Renee was. Then, after a lovely weekend of Christmas shopping with my long-standing, fellow mall muffin, including hours and hours cavorting in Nordys, I thought to myself, "Magnolia," for I sometimes call myself Magnolia, "why are you shocked? Nordstrom is always pleasant, perky and professional."
Even in the one instant, over a very long family history of being Nordstrom devotees, wherein I encountered an astoundingly rude salesgirl at the South Coast Plaza Kiehl's counter, corporate customer service and then the Kiehl's manager and SCP store manager responded to my concern with the utmost of speed and apology. No worries, Nordys! One bruised apple shall not damage your entire barrel.
The Grand Silver Dame, Northwest born and bred, holds a top-three spot of companies, at least pour Moi, which still understand and adhere to the concept of customer service with a smile. (Soooo, difficult to find anymore!) Disney, Nordstrom and Starbucks, they be! Thank you, Walt, Howard and, apropos to this wee homage, John W. Nordstrom and Carl Wallin.
Beginning as a "simple shoe store" and four, Nordstrom-family generations later, the brand is synonymous with quality, luxury and customer service. Sales associates, floor and otherwise, are forever beyond friendly, helpful and cheerful. No bored and impolite teens on these marbled floors! To boot, the dapper gents and young men of the shoe departments are surely a sight for sore eyes; one can spot them a mile off when on their breaks about the mall. 'Tis lovely to see men in ties and pressed trousers, even if it just for a bit. Remember my post, George Will is Right, Mostly? Yeah, that.
Having been scolded elsewhere in the mall for taking holiday decor pictures -apparently security guards thought I was taking undercover snaps of styles to counterfeit fashion- , I was somewhat nervous about taking those you see in my slideshow here. "I'm not knocking off designers, I promise!" I initiated nervously to anyone with a name tag looking my way, anticipating a strong finger wag from floor personnel. "I'm blogging," I'd add with a shaky sparkle in my smile. To a person, each said how wonderful and "Why not?"; it's a beautiful store, why shouldn't I tell the world? Truth be known, I'd probably have better and more pictures if I hadn't been still slightly apprehensive, despite the cheerful go-ahead.
[image error]Well, clearly when I enjoy something, I write about it, like Ken Burns ... minus the respect and CPB support. To that end, similar to a Happy Birthday, Walt Disney post I recently scribed, I offer the best homage possible: an excerpt from my latest novel.
Merry Christmas, Nordstrom! Happy New Year to All!
Excerpt from The Darlings of Orange County:
She didn't return to Salon Shoes. It was clear there was either no good news, at the very least, or no news at all about her book sales at the Expo and, that said, she'd make herself wait on the booties. L.A.M.B. was a treat, a pricey carrot for work well done. She agreed to treat herself only if the tradeshow went well and as of now she had no idea. Treats were always sweeter when well-earned. They'd put the boots back on the shelf at the end of the day, but at least they'd be safe from other women's skanky feet for a little while. She had to get herself another agent. Glenn w as proving to be a worthless hassle.
She instead browsed through the rest of the store. Nordstrom made everything better, even without an extravagant purchase. Her mother had introduced her to Nordstrom at a very early age. She had, in fact, introduced her to all things South Coast Plaza at a very early age. As Veronica's childhood friend, Dr. Mandy Fong, once said of both their mothers, "It's like a mother cat and her kitten. First, the mother cat catches the mouse, kills the mouse and gives it to her kitten to eat. Next, the mother cat catches the mouse, lets the kitten play with the mouse a bit, then takes back the mouse, kills it and gives it to the kitten to eat. Finally,
the mother cat catches the mouse and passes it off comp
letely as she proudly watches the kitten play with, kill, and then eat the mouse all by herself. So it is true with Nordstrom mothers and their kittens.
After canvassing all three floors, Veronica went to the Nordstrom Café and ordered her usual: an iced Americano with raspberry. She then exited the store and wandered past Tiffany's and Barney's, made a brief stop by the Escada window and then straight to the main drag where she turned left, away from Macy's and wandered aimlessly for hours in and out of her favorite shops. Eventually, she made a sharp right at the famed Carousel and courtyard, walking down to Bloomingdale's. If she were with her best bud Kieran, there would be long browses inside Brooks Brothers and the USC store.
December 7, 2012
The Darlings of Orange County: Christmas Ad Campaign 2012, Part 1
December 5, 2012
Old, Dead White Guys: JennyPop's Mystery Writing Bug
Yeah, yeah, I know. "Shouldn't you be working on Savannah Book IV?" Yes, I should. However, like Ken Burns or Anthony Weiner, when something strikes my fancy, I attend to it. Last week it was the need for a shiny pair of red heels for the Holidays. Ca-caw! Ca-caw! (Done, BTW. Thank you, Jessica Simpson and Cap't. Bloodstone!) This week, it's Christmas shopping for others ... and a nice little harlot dress to go with those Jessica Simpsons for a Christmas partay!
As it pertains to reading, writing and even TV & film, I'm always in the mood for a good mystery, usually British and hopefully Victorian. Of course, in a video interview about The Darlings of Orange County with fellow author Natalie Wright, I admitted my brain doesn't seem to be wired for mystery writing; I have to watch the same episode of Poirot or Midsomer Murders over and over to recall who dunnit. Although I do know Maggie shot Mr. Burns. Ergo, I feel the need to challenge myself and do just that, write a mystery.
So, I've started a little something. It's still mise-en-scène in Colonial Williamsburg, but just a bit different. Want to see it? It's just page one, but here it goes!
Excerpt from Old Dead White Guys: The Colonial Williamsburg Murders (working title) by Jennifer Susannah Devore
“How many times a year do you see a dead colonial?” Agent Bruce looked up into the blinding January sun, her Ray-Bans doing nothing to block the glare bouncing up under the shades from the January snow that coated the oyster shell driveway.
“Depends which year,” Officer Hillstrand scratched behind his ear as he surveyed the crowd kept at bay by mounted police, a line of four horses standing stoic and still, their riders equally perfectly postured and unfazed by the dozens of cameras, attached to news teams and curious tourists alike, trying desperately to get a clear shot of the freshly deceased through a sizable gap in a series of white partitions placed around the crime scene.
“This is pretty damn bold,” Agent Bruce stood up with an audible groan, bracing both knees as she did so. “Smack dab in our face,” she placed her hands on her hips, her right hand instinctively upon her holster, and swiveled slowly to scan the crowds. “I guess the university dumpsters and the woods below The Green Leafe just weren’t flashy enough,” she snarked.
“This is flashy alright,” Hillstrand cringed as he looked at the body. “Where’s the other damn partition?!” he suddenly yelled. “Get that shit covered up now!” he pointed to the gap which opened slightly onto the Palace Green.
This time of year was actually excellent for a murder. The day was a bitterly cold one, hovering just around twenty-degrees. This was helpful on two fronts to the investigators: cold weather works like a walk-in freezer to preserve a dead body and nobody goes to Colonial Williamsburg in January. The gawkers grew in number, but nothing like the circus this could have been had this happened during the summer; not to mention the body would have been much worse twelve hours into rigor on a ninety-eight-degree day Virginia day with ninety per cent humidity. Hillstrand shivered at that thought as he walked around the body to get another view from the backside. As he looked, he rubbed his neck. It was like sitting in the front row at the movies. He’d be happy once they could finally cut down the body. For now, he rubbed the growing crick and lolled his neck back and forth as he pondered the tempered, theatrical rage it took to stage this.
The body hung, dressed in full American colonial regalia: woolen knickers, a handsome, yet worn, frockcoat of a rust hue, white stockings and well-walked black clogs. A healthy fellow of about six feet and two-hundred-plus pounds, his sturdy frame swung awkwardly in the morning breeze on the front gates of the Governor’s Palace, one of Colonial Williamsburg’s most popular and photographed landmarks. Facing out toward town and the long Palace Green lawn, his hands were tied behind his back with his canteen straps. He hung by the neck exactly in the middle of the grand wrought iron gates that led into the Palace, where the two halves swung shut together, suspended by his own leather mandolin strap; he was a musician, a strolling balladeer meant to give the living history museum an air of levity, entertainment and authenticity.
His mandolin remained strung to his body, but hung and an odd angle as it was still attached to the strap, which was attached securely around his neck. He also wore a smaller leather strap around his hips: a thin holster for his tin whistle. In fact, the whistle itself found a familiar home where it now rested, if not a little more snuggly than usual: rammed down his throat, but just enough so that it made a sickening whistle when the winter breeze caressed and swung the body just right.
“Can we get this poor bastard down, yet?” Agent Bruce barked, just as what sounded like an A-sharp pierced the air.
“Just waiting on the M.E. He’s driving in from Richmond. I think he was fishing up there,” Officer Hillstrand offered.
“Fishing? In this kind of cold? Why? What the hell do you fish for in Richmond, anyway? Carp in a fountain?” Bruce, a San Diego native shrugged and pulled her Burberry scarf tighter.
Officer Edgar Hillstrand, himself a Seattle transplant and a passionate fisherman answered authoritatively, “Uh, the Chickahominy River runs up there and today’s the very last day of striped bass season.”
F.B.I. field agent Albie Bruce, who had started to walk away in search of hot coffee, turned back and raised her palms at Hillstrand, silently giving an all too clear, “Big whoop.”
“Well,” Hillstrand mistakenly took this gesture as a request for further information on local fishing, “see, today’s the last day you can fish for striped bass. After today, it’s illegal. Most likely, he’s doing his best to throw a few more hooks while he can,” he smiled, satisfied he’d offered up something pretty valuable.
Bruce didn’t look impressed or pacified and snapped, “I don’t give a crap what today is. I don’t care if it’s the last day to catch a damn mermaid and make her his personal love slave. We got a dead Robin Hood or whatever blowing in the wind here and I want him down. The longer he hangs here, the longer this whole case is compromised.”
Right on cue, the wind blew and the victim’s tin whistle hit a nauseating C-minor. The FBI agent winced and looked at his victim. With a spark of pity for the method of demise, appropriate sorrow for the family members whom had yet to see the crime scene and a healthy bit of professional admiration for the killer’s attention to irony and detail, he shook his head and wondered why a grown man would dress up like Peter Pan, or whomever he was supposed to be, and run about with a bunch of other grown-up fools singing and strumming all over this colonial Wally World.
She turned away from the body, then after a glance at an attentive Hillstrand whom was clearly awaiting instruction or query, watched as a couple of local law enforcement officers, bass fishermen she mused, finally secured the gap in the partition. She could hear audible disappointment from the Palace Green crowd and, disgusted, taught the oyster shell path a lesson as she crunched it mercilessly beneath her navy, Ralph Lauren, work pumps. She left the body and headed toward the temporary command center that was set up in the courtyard. She refilled her stainless steel coffee Thermos from one of the two large, metal coffee pots on a folding table. She splashed a dash of half-and-half inside, turning it the shade of Beyonce, screwed on the top, shook it, then unscrewed the top and filled the Thermos lid with steaming, bland comfort.
“First Colony coffee,” she scrunched her face in revulsion as she took a hearty yet vile gulp. “What a bunch of crap.”
As always, all material copyrighted and not permissible for copying, for commercial or private use. Cheers!
December 3, 2012
TIME Magazine, Charlie Brown and JennyPop
So, it really is the little things. Of course, being quoted by TIME magazine isn't exactly "little", my pretties! Charlie Brown, it appears, is making a ... no, TIME Entertainment journalist Graeme McMillan says don't call it a comeback. Charlie Brown is having a great revival and, apparently, the Peanuts tribute I scribed for the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con Souvenir Book, First Beagle on the Moon, made the grade as "Peanuts source material". Ah, being a dork pays off, it seems.
Is it déclassée to be so obviously excited about such a thing? Peut-être, but as Kevin Meaney sings, "I don't care! I don't caaaare! I. Don't. Care. I don't care!"
Want to read the original article? Voila!
November 28, 2012
Return of the Rollerskating Snowflakes! Must Be Christmas at Disneyland!
Just when I'm convinced the candy corn glow of Hallowe'en is the best season ever, Christmastime sprinkles me with cinnamon and nutmeg fairy dust and it's off to races I go! No more Pumpkin Spice lattes, no, Siree! Now, 'tis time for Gingerbread and Egg Nog lattes! ~insert Homer Simpson-style drool here~ Yes, what could be more glorious than Christmastime? If you know Moi, you know the only answer to that could be ... Disneyland at Christmastime!
I'm oft queried, usually accompanied by a snide, wrinkled nose, "How many times can you go to Disneyland so much? Isn't it all the same, all the time?" In two words, respectively, "Googolplex" and "No".
Especially at Christmas, Disney is aglow and alive with new designs, décor and discovery. California Adventure Park, par example, is sporting an all new, first-time ever, holiday overlay on Buena Vista Street, including the luxuriously Art Deco-inspired department store Elias & Co. If the mall is just a tad too modern for you, if it lacks the creativity some of us need, and if the likes of T
arget, Wal-Mart and Kohl's are just not our scene (hands up high!), a Buena Vista Christmas just might be A Christmas Story overload your contemporary senses crave right now: 50ft., old-fashioned Christmas tree, vintage toys, model trains and kiddie pics with old St. Nick.
Do yourself a huge favour. Get at least one day of holiday shopping in with Walt. Not close to a Disney park? If you are, don't want to pay the hefty entrance fee or commit to an annual pass? (You should, but that's a personal matter.) No worries, pals. Downtown Disney can feed your holiday needs, in both the Golden and Sunshine States. Tokyo and Paris each have a park and, if all else fails, a visit to your local mall's Disney Store can provide a travel-size portion of Mickey cheer. Not even a mall nearby? Wow. Well, gimme a minute. Ah! Disney.com whilst watching Mickey's Christmas Carol will do the job nicely!
Disney merch isn't all Mickey ears, giant pencils and pinwheel suckers. Some of you would be happily surprised at the selections hidden amidst the back streets and castle crevices. Star Traders in Tomorrowland, at the egress of Star Tours, proffers an impressive inventory of Star Wars figures, apparel and collectibles for the sci-fi geek on your list. My geek faves? Muppets-as-Star Wars figures and the Obi Wan bathrobe.
New Orleans Square offers moderately priced, casually pretty pirate tees and other, pricier, Disney Couture gear. No hip-top kind of gals on your list? Mlle. Antoinette's Parfumerie boasts sleek shelves and shiny glass cases full of dear-but-worth-it designer scents: Christian Dior, Shalimar and more.
Main Street, Fantasyland and Frontierland have enough shops to keep you busy sifting through racks and shelves of crystal, porcelain, jewelry, fine leather goods, fine art, Disneyana, Pendleton, Dooney & Bourke, Tarina Tarantino and just about anything funky, wonky, pretty, sparkly, wacky, wild and weird to conquer that Christmas or Hanukkah list. As mentioned above, don't forget about Downtown Disney: no admission fee and plenty of Disney joy! My fave spot? Disney Vault 28, of course ... or, as I like to call it, Vault Disney. Get it? Ha ha. (As of late though, I do have to admit the unique selection here has thinned and the quality, especially where the Tarina Tarantino baubles are concerned, is, as the French would say with a shrug and a so-so wiggle of the hand, comme-ci comme-ca. Meh.)
Remember, Christmas shopping is not just about the buying; it's about the perusing, the strolling, the atmosphere and the hot cocoa, spiced cider and egg nog cappuccinos. IMHO, going into New Year's debt over gifts is just stupid. It really is the thought that counts. True, Disney may not be the least expensive brand; but there are enough goodies under $30 with a unique and personal factor that outweighs even Auntie Wilma's high-end Neiman-Marcus gifties. (Of course, that does not mean we don't still want Auntie Wilma's Neimans boxes!!)
Whether it's precious alone-time (Underestimate not the joy of Disney meandering by oneself.) or with a pal, whether with a lovey-dovey or a little loved one, Disney provides everything modern senses require for the perfect Christmas Story-Christmas: fireworks, festive drinks (adult and non-alkie), treaty-sweeties, parades, characters in holiday haberdashery and loads of photo-ops everywhere you turn. Disneyland is for fun, friends and family ... especially friends! Who knows what next Christmas may bring? You owe it to yourself. Be happy! Go to Disneyland!
Fave Disneyland Holiday Attractions!
Jingle Jangle Jamboree: Frontierland's "West Pole" f/ country tuneage by Billy Hill and the Holiday Hillbillies, Mrs. Claus' Christmas cookies, Holiday Corral and Santa's reindeer, plus a holiday crafting station!
A Christmas Fantasy Parade: The classic! Rollerskating snowflakes, minueting Princes and Princesses, wooden soldiers, prancing reindeer and all your fave characters in the gayest holiday gear!
Haunted Mansion Holiday: New Orleans Square and The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay! If you're a regular reader of mine, you know full-well my love for Jack and Sally ... and Zero!
Buena Vista Street's Very First Christmas: California Adventure Park's 1920s, small town Christmas and department store, Elias & Co. ... get yourself some Midwest-America nostalgia.
All slideshow photos by Loren Javier
