As soon as Thanksgiving is over, the Beverly Hills bitches are out and about in full force and full maquillage. Driving their Beemers and Mercs with maniacal intent, they hit the department stores determined to put a dent in their hubbys’ credit cards. Black Friday is what the day after Thanksgiving is called, as all the retailers hold their breath and pray that the huge mass of Christmas shoppers will magically turn their red losses into black profits. This year was better than usual. The weather was good and so were the bargains. The queues outside the doors of the major stores looked like refugee camps, with shoppers putting up tents days in advance of this retail event. Some matrons even used pepper spray to fend off the crowds and clear a path to their prized stake, and many fights broke out, as they do when the prize is a hideous leather jacket reduced from $200 to $35. But mostly the Beverly Hills ladies behaved well and the stores were pleased.
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Walking swiftly through a major Beverly Hills department store, I was constantly accosted by the eager wide smile of sales assistants who oozed into my path with reptilian intent. ‘How are you today?’ they trilled as if they gave a damn. ‘I have the flu — highly contagious,’ I replied. Dodging sprays of ill-smelling scents that they wish to douse me with, I negotiated my way through the overcrowded cosmetics department. During recessions, lipstick sales surge.
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In the clogged roads, one of these ladies held a cigarette in her left fake-nailed hand and a cell phone in her right into which she was talking animatedly as she zoomed past us in the fast lane. ‘How can she drive?’ I asked Percy as he pulled up alongside. ‘She’s using her knees!’ he replied horrified. ‘What an idiot.’ The Beverly Hills bitches (male and female) like to lean on their horns, and their impatience with red lights, crosswalks and toddlers in pushchairs knows no bounds. If you linger for more than one second after the light changes, there’s a cacophony of klaxons and a few choice swear words mixed in.
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Each year, Beverly Hills and Hollywood bring out the same tired Christmas decorations that they have used to deck their streets for the last 20 years. There’s a distinct paucity of glitter and the small Christmas trees outlined in tinsel, and occasional wonky bunch of sleigh bells, seem to reflect the vapidness of the global economy. Compared to many of the private homes in the area, where animated Santas gambol on the lawns and the houses are festooned with glimmering lights like a transatlantic liner, the streets of Beverly Hills and Hollywood look downright poverty-stricken.
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Nobody does it better than New York City. Manhattan’s lavish street decorations, painstakingly produced windows and amazingly massive Christmas trees put every other city in the shade. Last year, when I left the gorgeously glittering New York and travelled to Birmingham I was dismayed that there wasn’t a single street decoration and hardly anything festive in the stores at all.
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To top off the pre-Christmas spirit, fierce 100-mile-an-hour Santa Ana winds are ripping through all of the western states causing havoc in Hollywood, power outages in Podunk, felling palm trees galore and diverting hundreds of planes — but more importantly it’s hell on my hair. Talk about the wild wild West!
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We send Christmas cards every year and I love receiving cards from friends. Sadly, however, many of those I’ve spoken to this year are just sending a ‘Happy Holidays’ email instead. Tut-tut — not the Christmas spirit at all. The children are getting into the act as well, emailing rather than writing their Christmas letters to Santa Claus. I can imagine Santa checking his BlackBerry for an addendum requesting, ‘The Idol master Super Poseable Action Figure Amani Haruka and a Fraulein Revoltech Haruhi-Yuki Nagato Action Figure’. ‘Spoiled Beverly Hills bitch,’ he’d grumble. Nevertheless, I’m no Scrooge and I can’t wait to spend the Christmas holidays with all my family. Ho-ho-ho!
The World According to Joan is available in all major bookstores in February. She’s on twitter @joancollinsobe
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