STOCKING STUFFERS: Need something to finish off...

STOCKING STUFFERS: Need something to finish off Aunt Gertie’s stocking? Or the package to Cousin Donna? Disaster planners would love it if some survival gadgets made your gift list (B1). . . . But native Californians are the toughest to convince of the need for planning, experts say. “Their attitude is, ‘I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve been through a lot of earthquakes and I’m still standing,’ ” said Wendy Milligan of the Sheriff’s Department.

CODE REDUCTION: Oxnard continued efforts to reduce its 700-page city code when it repealed regulations governing reduction plants, where dead animals were turned into fertilizer. . . . The ordinance addresses the “cooking, pressing, drying” of animal parts in the plants, which haven’t existed in the city for years. . . . “That doesn’t mean there won’t be an explosion of them the minute we repeal this,” City Atty. Gary Gillig joked. “However, we have other tools to regulate them, including zoning laws and special-use permits.”

COMMERCIAL APPEAL: He’s only 5, but Daniel Henson, above, has amassed a good-sized college fund, thanks to being photogenic. Danny, a Thousand Oaks kindergartner, got into the business when an agent scouted a Mothers of Multiples meeting he was attending with his mom and twin sisters. Danny ended up with the contract. He’s done five commercials so far, and a couple of them have been big. The latest is a McDonald’s ad that shows Danny and a little girl sitting on the stairs, waiting for their Happy Meals.

FEAST DAY: The Virgin of Guadalupe is important to many Mexican Americans, who celebrate her feast day Tuesday (E2). In honor of the Virgin--who, legend says, appeared to a poor Indian in central Mexico in 1531--parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Oxnard will hold a daylong fair. . . . “For many of us, the Virgin of Guadalupe is the . . . empress of the Americas,” says Maria Martin, an event organizer. “We take the day to remember all the traditions that our ancestors taught us.”