Throwing in the Card

Your mother may have hounded you to write thank-you cards when you were growing up, but now that you’re an adult, who’s compelling you to send out holiday greeting cards? Who, that is, besides card manufacturers and retailers?

Ame Simon, 34, a children’s TV programming executive in Studio City, has decided that this year she’s skipping the card-writing tradition. “I’m taking the year off,” she says with a sigh. “I’m just not in the mood, and I realized ‘Hey, I don’t have to do this, and I’m not going to get in trouble if I don’t!’ ”

Rather than spending “a gazillion hours” signing her name and addressing envelopes, Simon plans on writing just a few long letters to old friends she hasn’t communicated with in a long time. She figures most of her good friends probably won’t even notice her absence among the avalanche of cards they’ll receive. And if they do notice, it won’t ruin the friendship.

Simon is bucking a trend. Several Valley stationers report that many of their customers are writing letters and sending cards. “We sell more Christmas stationery every year. People write notes on it to put inside their cards,” says Jeeti Walia, manager of Bush’s Stationers in North Hollywood.

Adds Rober Coombs, manager of Maloney’s Stationers in Westlake Village, “Generally, we sell out of Christmas stationery. This year, we added a line by Crane and it’s doing very well.”

Simon will miss only one aspect of sending cards. “It’s a good way to make sure that your address book is up to date.”

Christmas Takes a Holiday

Take a look through the stack of catalogues you’re receiving daily in the mail, and you’ll notice that the phrase “Christmas Gift Ideas” is frequently being replaced by “Holiday Gift Ideas.” Schools and employers, too, often refer now to a holiday or winter vacation rather than a Christmas vacation.

“From a Jewish sensibility, it’s a very positive change,” says Rabbi Donald Goor of Temple Judea in Tarzana. “This year, I’ve seen it referred to as the Christmas-Hanukkah shopping season. It’s become hyphenated. A Jewish person feels much more comfortable in that way.”

Yet for all their touting of “holiday shopping,” few retailers have followed through on the commercialization of Hanukkah.

“You go into the malls right now, and the stores are filled with prewrapped Christmas gifts, but there are no prewrapped items for Hanukkah,” says Andrea Axelman, a Tarzana mother of three and frequent mall shopper. “I was looking in Topanga Plaza last week for a little Hanukkah gift for my kid’s teacher, and there were all these little booths in the middle of the mall selling popcorn, nuts, candy, but not one had a Hanukkah wrap. It was all red and green. They lost a sale because of that.”

All in the Family

They’re billed as “The Adults.” The name originated about eight years ago when they opened for a band called Venice, which is made up of their uncles and cousins. Explains The Adults’ manager, Kevin Clark of Reseda, “They didn’t have a name yet, and they weren’t old enough to be in the club legally, so they decided to be adults for the evening.”

Nowadays the name fits, and only the hippest fans know that another suitable name would be “Sons of the Lennon Sisters and One Next-Door Neighbor.”

“We never discouraged them, but we didn’t want to encourage them either,” says Janet Lennon, who regularly sang with her three sisters on “The Lawrence Welk Show.” She lives in Sherman Oaks. “They’re very talented, so what can you do?”

Her two sons, Billy and John Bernhardi, are the rhythm guitar and bass players, respectively. Their cousins, Chris (lead vocalist) and Joe Cathcart (lead guitarist), are the sons of Peggy Lennon and renowned jazz trumpeter Dick Cathcart. Drummer Mike Mazza grew up next door to the Cathcarts.

The band is taking a few months off to write music. “The only time we sang with our mothers professionally was at Dodger Stadium a couple of years ago,” says Chris Cathcart, 23, who shares a one-bedroom apartment in Reseda with his cousins Billy and John. “But when the whole family gets together at Christmas, we’ll start jamming.”

Tall Tree Tales

The traditional trappings of Christmas--snow, freezing temperatures, elaborate outdoor decorations--are a tad scarce in Southern California. For a dose of old-fashioned Christmas, you might want to drive to Granada Hills and view what is billed (by the Chamber of Commerce) as “the San Fernando Valley’s largest Christmas tree,” at 67 feet tall.

“Because of the high winds, we almost didn’t get to decorate it this year in time for our annual holiday parade, which was last Sunday,” says Louise Marquez, Chamber manager. The tree is at Chatsworth Street and Zelzah Avenue.

Overheard

“I think the only thing worse than finding a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking would be to find a fruitcake there.”

--Man waiting in line at Bank of America in Panorama City