A star at Christmas

In Los Angeles last month we were wined and dined and mulligan-souped up to our eyeballs. Los Angelenos love entertaining their visitors and even though I’ve lived on and off in the hills of Beverly since I was 21, I’m still welcomed happily by the natives. I started Christmas shopping early in LA and New York, but it doesn’t seem that early as the decorations go up immediately after Hallowe’en. I’ve never quite understood why our American cousins like Hallowe’en so much. Certainly it is an exciting event for children, but why several of my acquaintances (who should know better) delight in attending parties dressed up as hookers beats me. When my children were young we always did the full witch, Batman, space cadet bit, knocking on doors with impunity, secure in the knowledge that no proffered sweets would contain poison, broken glass or other horrors, as too often happens today. In Manhattan, my daughter-in-law will only take three-year-old Ava Grace on Hallowe’en to apartments in their building where she knows the occupants. What a sad indictment of our society today, but better safe than sorry.

I’m a huge fan of Christmas festivities so I had great fun ‘lighting the lights’ in Burlington Arcade, which looks wonderfully festive now. We started planning our own Christmas card in July and as for decorating and adorning the tree, I can say with all due modesty — I am a total expert. I began making my own decorations when my kids were tiny. We made them by hand — each one a minor work of art — painstakingly covered in sequins, velvet and ribbon. Each Christmas we created a few more and by the time they were teenagers the attic overflowed with seasonal cheer. The delightful memories evoked by each gaudy styrofoam bauble inaugurated the Christmas spirit and shortly after the tree was bought: real fir, at least eight feet tall, full, luxuriant and strong enough to handle lots of balls.

In Las Vegas we were dazzled by Cirque de Soleil’s Love, an extravaganza of acrobatics and fantasia, movement and dancing, held together by the music and film clips of the Beatles from their earliest days.