A, Like, Totally L.A. Christmas
Behold! Christmas in Los Angeles! Where one begs the question, “Should I put a bow on this cactus?” I’ve lived in sunny Southern California for almost 25 years. Every December, I’ve trekked to the East Coast to eat thousands of cookies with family, sip Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, embrace subzero wind chill and hopefully toss a snowball or two. That’s Christmas to me. It has a smell. A sound. A feel. Cold air, ricotta pie, fresh cup of Joe. My mom’s meatballs sizzling in a pan, anecdotes embellished with Boston accents, tires splashing over slush. Frosted windshields. Fluffy scarves. Mittens! But this is the year of the plague. We’re draped in Corona, trapped in our little bubbles. Mine happens to be in the San Fernando Valley. The smell here is a little different, mainly marijuana mixed with broken dreams. The sound? A slow, maddening, high-pitched squeak of a rusty roof wind turbine. Most days, I can still wear shorts. It feels like, ya know, a desert.
My wife and I have two rambunctious five-year old boys. It’s been a challenge getting them outside lately, so we decided to buy tickets to a drive-thru winter wonderland light show. We desperately needed something to feel like Christmas. What it ended up feeling like was…totally L.A. Let’s take a trip, shall we?
Full disclosure, we bought tickets for the “twilight show” to save a few bucks. We thought it would be a dark enough around 5pm. It…was not. Nonetheless, so began our journey into the North Pole of Woodland Hills.
We were greeted by a waddle of penguins. I was immediately envious because they were wearing scarves. One of them could even balance on his head, something I imagined he’d learned in a Silverlake yoga class.
We made sure to have our covid masks on so we could roll down our windows to get a closer look at the ginger bread family with gingerbread pet dog. Their tiny house would go for an easy two million in Brentwood.
Next, we passed Santa’s workshop featuring real live performers! Excited, I told my boys, “Look, Santa’s elves are making presents!” My son Charlie retorted, “Um, they’re not real elves.” When I asked him why, he answered dryly, “Their ears are clip-on.”
Then we saw a couple of reindeer, not sure which ones, possibly Donna & Kelly, or maybe Brenda & Brandon. The Unicorn was definitely named Andrea because she raised my SAG-AFTRA health benefits earnings requirement.
And what better way to ring in the holidays than with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Snoop Dogg?
The masked live performers were a grim reminder that amongst the yuletide cheer, we are all still in a pandemic, and I worried this maskless child elf could be a superspreader.
“The lighted inner village houses were absolutely delightful!” is something we would have said if we weren’t so cheap and had bought tickets for a later show.
These festive polar bears gave me the urge to grab a bottle of Coke. Not because of the memorable soda commercial. Because it was early and thus still sort of hot.
This extremely large teddy bear gave me all the feels…to write a sci-fi script in which teddies come to life and attack! I’d pitch it as Godzilla meets Corduroy.
The show was inclusive of other holiday traditions…
Hanukkah:
Chinese New Year:
Kwanzaa:
Buddha:
And “Spiked Eggnog”:
As we drove off from the Zack-Snyder-Cut Car Wash, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of joy. They gave us goodie bags filled with candy and bottles of coconut water on our way out, nice little tokens we’d enjoy after wiping them down with loads of sanitizer. And we learned lessons that would stay with us forever. Be grateful for what you have, enjoy every moment you spend together wherever you are, and if you are ever going to see a light show at Christmastime in L.A., it’s best if it’s actually dark.
