Have Yourself an Instant Merry Little Christmas
There it was, right on the rack at Aahs, stapled inside a tidy cellophane packet, the ultimate answer to the holiday marathon: “Instant Christmas! Drop capsule in warm/hot water and it’s Christmastime!”
Well, not quite. Unless your idea of an old-fashioned yule is four gelatinous red capsules that, when dissolved, explode into rather spongy Christmas mobiles.
Anything Is Possible
But this is Los Angeles, land of instant stardom, take-out sushi and tomorrow’s news yesterday--and anything’s possible, including instant snow, instant turkey, instant carolers and instant Christmas trees.
Is there a Walter Mitty on your gift list who yearns to be a jumbo-jet pilot, a demolition expert, a chef at Spago? A call to Dreams Come True and their fantasies can come true--instantly.
Or perhaps having to face that tangle of wires and defective sockets and loose bulbs packed away in the box labeled “XMAS LIGHTS” has dampened your enthusiasm for turning your little slice of the neighborhood into a twinkling garden wonderland. No problem. Kathleen Wilson at Dekra-Lite will do it all for you. And take it all down, too.
Let It Snow, Let It Snow
Dreaming of a white Christmas? A call to Union Ice Co. or any of half a dozen other ice makers can yield a good snowfall in, oh, maybe an hour.
Yearning for an old-fashioned tree, an eight-footer with lights and garlands and peppermint sticks--one that will magically appear fully festooned and magically disappear, drooping needles and all, after the holidays? Harry Findley and Fred Gibbons at Flower Fashions in Beverly Hills are among the florists who’ll oblige.
Lila Greene, alias Renta Yenta, will provide any service during the holidays “as long as it’s legal, and kind.”
“A lot of my clients are divorced men,” she said, “so they want someone to buy the Christmas tree or decorate the house so it looks Christmasy, all the things that cause such anxieties. Someone will want me to drop off dinner for 10 or 12 and make it look like they did it”--an instant family gathering, strife-free.
Greene, who’s based in Sherman Oaks, can even round up a reindeer and sleigh. She’ll also address and send Christmas cards, find the just right gift and wrap it up. One of her clients is a man with an elderly mother--”For Hanukkah, he wants me to send her someone to show her new crochet stitches. And then we’ll videotape it so she can refer back to it later.”
Penmanship a problem? Ann Fiedler Creations on Pico Boulevard has a staff of calligraphers with pens in hands. “We can do a hundred addresses overnight,” said Lynne Gallagher, at $1.50 per envelope for a three-line address, plus a dollar for a two-line return address and applicable charges for rush orders. All the host adds is the guests when holiday entertaining is placed in the hands of a professional party planner. These caterers, florists, decorators and entertainment bookers all wrapped up in one neat package add up to an instant party.
Dickensian is in this year, according to Julie Loshin of Parties Plus. That might mean invitations hand-delivered with individual plum puddings, valet parkers wearing mufflers and caps, fake snow blanketing the lawn and costumed carolers at the door.
Santa Fe Christmas
More trendy than traditional is another favored theme, a Southwest or Santa Fe Christmas. For this, Loshin suggests Navajo rugs and cactus and, on the buffet table, blue corn tortillas, turkey mole and flan.
Beverly Hills party planner Arthur Simon reports “nothing outrageous” has been requested this season by clients, but, “We had ice skaters at the Hilton for a private party, and for another we had harpists surrounded by buffet tables.”
His interpretation of a Dickens Christmas might include a Scrooge to greet guests--”Don’t have a happy Christmas”--and, Simon said, “We also have wenches serving.”
For $75-a-person up, Simon promises a personalized production: “We see what kind of home they have, what their taste is, what colors they wear. We’ll even look in their closets. We want the party to be as much of them as possible.”
For those who loathe long lines and teeming shopping malls, thousands of gifts are but a phone call and a credit-card number away--by catalogue. Some proprietors, such as San Francisco-based Williams-Sonoma, will gift-wrap the purchase ($1.50) and tuck in a hand-written note.
The turkey-to-go, with all the trimmings, is on order from the neighborhood gourmet deli. For the down-easter on your list, Legal Seafood Co. of Boston has promised overnight delivery of two live Maine lobsters, packed in chilled seaweed and complete with bibs and claw crackers for just under $75.
Fred Gibbons of Flower Fashions can still send the tree-trimmers over, with tree. “It’s never too late,” he said. “We’ve got our people climbing trees and sliding down banisters all over town.”
A number of their clients are in show business, Gibbons said, “and they’re touring Europe, or have a show on the road. They’re here for Christmas and then they’re gone. We do their trees every year. They set it up a year in advance.
“We try to stay away from the bizarre,” he said, “and within some sort of parameters. But from time to time you have someone who wants pink shiny ornaments and pink feathers.”
They will provide lights, ornaments and “early frost” (diamond dust) or will utilize the client’s family heirlooms and treasures.
Their clients, Gibbons said, tend to be people for whom “time is more important than money. Say you’re the head of a major studio and you’re going to entertain a couple of hundred people and you’re carrying on a multimillion-dollar business. Your time may be worth $2,000 or $3,000 an hour.”
And, he added, “They might be able to get a multimillion-dollar contract drawn up but they can’t put a piece of ribbon and tinsel together and make it look like anything.”
What does all of this cost? Gibbons laughed and said, “A lot.” The low range, he said, would be $300, including the tree, “and it’s very easy to spend $1,000 for a tree.” That includes cutting it up and carting it away after the holidays.
Kathleen Wilson’s Irvine-based Dekra-Lite is in business to put up other people’s Christmas lights. “My son just finished putting my lights on last night,” she confessed earlier this week.
The basic Dekra-Lite service, which means lights strung along the front-facing eaves, runs $75 for a condo, $95 for a one-story house and $135 for a two-story house. “And we service anything that happens from then on,” Wilson said. “We have a licensed electrician on call.”
Each client receives what Wilson called “a little care package” of extra bulbs along with the lights. Extras, such as lights in bushes, around windows and doors and steps, are by estimate. Using hot glue, she said, “We can light anything.” The basic service includes taking down, as well as putting up.
“We want to get Christmas lighted again,” said Wilson, who went into business in November. “There are elderly people who cannot do it themselves, and invalids, and there are people who just don’t have the time, with both men and women working.”
Wilson speaks from experience. “Every year was a battle,” she said. “I couldn’t get my husband up there on the ladder.”
Wilson, looking ahead, talked about lighting up weddings and graduations and bar mitzvahs and Fourth of Julys. “There are so many things people need nowadays and there’s so little time.”
Just like they do it in the movies, Union Ice Co. and half a dozen other ice makers will cover your lawn with 1,200 square feet of snow for about $1,300. Said branch manager Bob Shaver, “It’ll take maybe an hour to blow 20 tons of ice and make a snow scene. We’re set up so we can do it on a couple of days’ notice.”
It’s not real snow, mind you--”There are small chunks of ice that just don’t get ground up all the way,” Shaver said. But it’s fluffy and white and, in 75-degree weather, it should hang around at least a day.
“Santa Claus Makes House Calls.” So says John Alexander, president of Dreams Come True in Los Feliz. A house call on Christmas Eve or Christmas day will set you back $185 (plus $100 if Mrs. Claus comes along). “It’s every parent’s fantasy,” Alexander said, “But, of course, we deliver adult presents, too. I mean, what’s better than Santa driving up your new Ferrari?”
Also available for house calls: carolers, toy soldiers and elves.
When it comes to gift-giving, “We’re kind of like ‘Fantasy Island,’ ” Alexander said. “If you want a present that isn’t going to get thrown in the back of the closet, or isn’t the wrong size or wrong color, you give an activity.”
Perhaps the chance to be chef-for-a-day alongside Wolfgang Puck at Spago? A flight at the controls of a 747? A spin at the wheel of the Batmobile?
Now, about that 747, it’s actually a simulator at LAX but, for $1,450, Alexander promises an unforgettable three-hour flight of fancy. After briefing, he said, “You lumber down the runway just like you were lumbering down the runway. . . . You can program planes to fly in front of you. . . . You can land with the wheels up and skid in on the belly. I mean, how many people have ever flown a 747?”
Has someone on your gift list always wanted to drive in the Indy 500? For $1,950, Dreams Come True has an instant race driver package, including training in a formula Ford before a whiz around the Riversaide raceway, three nights’ hotel, insurance, racing suit, helmet and gloves.
Then there’s the weekend demolition package, which includes tips from an explosives expert and the thrill of pushing the plunger to set off the dynamite at a multistory building that is being razed. And why would anyone fantasize about doing this? “I don’t quite know,” Alexander said, “but I would guess it’s power.”
Others have expressed more mundane fantasies, such as having their spring house cleaning done or taking a putting lesson from Arnold Palmer. Dreams Come True has also taken the romantic-at-heart by helicopter to the top of a skyscraper for a candlelight dinner and by Lear jet for a mile-high tete-a-tete while circling above the Golden Gate Bridge.
“It’s not just another tie,” said Alexander. Fantasies aren’t filled instantly but, he said, “We’re set to do these on a couple of hours’ notice.”
Jeannine Stein also contributed to this article.
