Have Yourself a Merry (Little?) Christmas!

Look at all the lovely Christmas lights decorating my neighborhood!!!
Oh wait...
That's traffic clogging my residential street...

I already missed my merry band of misfits…

It was our last day (possibly forever) on our highly rated Network sitcom, and I’d splurged on high-end bottles of vodka as a thankful, albeit teary goodbye to my ADs, our Stage PA and my fellow Second Teamers.   I’d also purchased a few extra Kettle Ones for friends come Christmas Day, and spending an evening over the weekend with a Criminal Minds marathon (hey, some people like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I happen to enjoy serial killers), I was filled with the Spirit of the Season as I gleefully tied ribbons on the bottles, scissored said ribbons into festive curlicues and sat back to admire my generosity and extravagance!



$$$  SUCH EXTRAVAGANCE!  $$$

After all, that’s the whole point of Christmas, right?  I mean, I had the money, so why not spend as much as possible in a month and rack up as much credit card debt as I could manage in order to buy the affections of people who already like me?

Well... Maybe not SUCH extravagance when photographed to scale!

OK, so I’m a lousy liar and you didn’t believe my story for a second (although the Criminal Minds part is true), but I WAS filled with the Joy of Christmas and celebrating in my own special way, I hung up a cheery holiday wreath!



Sooo FESTIVE!!!

I even nearly broke into a sweat trying to erect my Christmas tree! 

(In my defense, it was all the way in the back of a crowded shelf…)



Whilst perhaps small in stature, the joy is infinite!

And delightful as it stands on its own, it’s actually usually accompanied by a lovely skirt, a strand of red tinsel and a box of teeny tiny ornament balls and doves that my Mom and sister bought for me!  

But at my kitty’s elderly age and with her lack of teeth, those are now shiny, tantalizing choking hazards.  And whilst I used to also display a delightful miniature crèche (wherein as I don’t have a DGA card, I could still Direct each Yuletide as to which side of the stage I wanted the principle players Mary, Joseph and the Magi to enter); that bit of Holiday bliss ended years ago when Pretty began batting the Baby Jesus around the living room floor with her paw…  (Hadn’t He been through enough?!)

But I digress!

Handing out the “airplane-sized” glass bottles wrapped in their protective tissue paper at work, I was thanked with smiles, hugs and the gratitude that at any given stressful moment, one simple shot of voddy was but an arm’s length away.  (And for a bunch of soon-to-be unemployed people, my humble gift was waaay better than frankincense or myrrh!)

>>><<<

Already booked on my next gig with an 8am call time at Warner Bros. the next morning, I was feeling rather reluctant to stay for what could only be labeled as my Last Supper.

“You have to stay for dinner” my co-workers encouraged me.  “They usually take over and lavishly decorate a different sound stage; the food is always phenomenal, and even though this is probably our last episode, you’ve got to stick around and eat with us!  There’s gonna be lobster and Chateaubriand!”

(Mmm…  Steak…)

Succumbing to the gentle urging, I followed in step to await the presumably ostentatious Network festivities awaiting our salivating palates as we fell into line.  

Certainly, this would be a day and a dinner to remember!

>>><<<

But rather than finding ourselves enveloped in a warm well-heated welcoming environment, we found ourselves shuffled into an outdoor tent, crowded around tables, swarming elbow to elbow under heat lamps wondering who got food from where.  There was a sushi bar?  There were sterno-heated vats with lobster claws?  There were grilled chickens and cactus leaves?  (Allergic, allergic, grossed out, and um, ICK!) 

Eventually settling down with my Second Teamers and a box of tortellini with Alfredo sauce, I couldn’t help but take the following picture of the (?) pooling inside:

OK…  So it wasn’t my best Last Supper, but who was I to complain?

>>><<<

OOH, but I was one to complain in the solitude of my bat-cave at the “dinner to remember”!

Speaking on behalf of the, uh, lower GI area; I didn’t think I’d even make it to my new job the next morning, let alone my car.  Heck, I’d barely made it to the parking structure at Sony with only one bathroom stop on stage, and frankly, it was a Christmas Miracle that I’d made it home “accident-free” before taking a hearty swig of Pepto.  (OOF.)

>>><<<

Suffice it to say however, I did indeed make it to my next multi-camera (extremely raunchy) sit-com the next morning; and although it’s not a series I would necessarily care to work on for more than a few days at a time, at least I have a few wonderful friends there to help make the days that much brighter.  After all, that really IS a part of the true Christmas Spirit – being blessed to spend time with the ones you love!

>>><<<

Friday, December 9, 2011; 5pm-ish:

Quietly plotting how to bludgeon and dismember the drivers in front of me, I sat festering in stand-still traffic for roughly two hours on Santa Monica Boulevard wondering why I hadn’t purchased a stainless steel machete and a box of latex gloves during my last trip to Rite Aid in order to hide my fingerprints before whacking the bloody life out of everyone on the f**king road.

I’d eventually made it onto my residential street; I had the turn signal on to pull into my parking space, but with the string of cars lined up to my left all honking belligerently at the vehicle in front of them, I sat patiently (well, patiently FESTERING), waiting for just ONE kind soul on their frantic drive to Best Buy down the Boulevard to allow me safe passage home only thirty feet away.

And then:  The Magic of Christmas.  As if on cue (for whatever indiscernible reason), a driver stopped short, flashed his brights and allowed me to creep up the hill to park at my bat cave.

>>><<<

Perhaps the spirit of the holidays will always be a mystery that I’ll forever try to make sense of, and never be able to truly figure out (though not for lack of trying!). 

But for now, I’m choosing to believe that Santa Claus really does exist – he just has to assume many different identities.  :)

>>><<<

Wishing you all the happiest of holidays,

Machete-free, Elf Miss P

(And my Christmas bag-o-kitty!)



Hey, whatever brings her JOY!

*****

Author’s Addendum:  Should you wish to see actual extravagance in Hollywood, have a gander at the Two and a Half Men “trailer” deposited on the Warner Bros. lot for Actor Ashton Kutcher:



ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME???!!!

(Yes, that would be a crew member’s Dodge Durango SUV parked next to the bi-level chrome monster for your visual comparison.)