RSVP / THE SOCIAL CITY : Parties During the Holidays Come in All Sizes
Ho! Ho! Ho! That’s definitely the mood of Christmas parties and benefits. If the speed limit on your freeway goes up, you’ll get to more of them. If it doesn’t, it’s OK to regret your overflow invitations. You can’t be five places at once.
L’Escoffier Stag: The Bachelors welcomed 19 new members at a holiday stag dinner at L’Escoffier. Dinner chairmen Scott Stewart McKay and James Porter Scott Shotwell joined the Bachelors President Steven William Leland in welcoming the newest members to the 91-year-old organization:
Scott Adamson, Timothy Byrne, Mark Childs, Lee Dietz, William Eggers, William Garland III, Timothy Gorry, Kent Handleman, Richard Hearrean, Brandt Hooker, Mark Hotchkis, Oscar Islas Jr., Stephen Janes, Christopher Link, Sean McGinn, Matthew Pauley, Robert Scott Jr., Jonathan Shapiro and Gantry Wilson.
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Big and Little: Parties come in all sizes. There were 415 guests--an acceptance rate of 93%--at a stunning private party in Los Angeles last week, but the hosts won’t let us use their names.
Priscilla and Curt Tamkin also gave their annual Christmas Cheer. They brought in a chef and captain Tony Mah with six waiters from Trader Vic’s, as always, and everyone knew what to do with the mai tais and champagne.
Egg rolls, rumaki, barbecued ribs and turkey disappeared in an atmosphere of mistletoe and holly.
Having so much fun:
Carolbeth and Lester Korn, Kasey and Peter McCoy, Kim and Lisa Bell, Peggy and Walter Grauman, Royce and Jennifer Diener, Dona and Dwight Kendall, Tom and Travis Kranz, John and Martha Welborne, Norman and Susie Barker, Rocco and Marian Siciliano and Priscilla’s sister Candy Martin of San Francisco.
Suzanne Marx jumped the season with her Nov. 30th ring-in-the-holidays, and filled her charming apartment with 140 guests. A couple of days later, newlyweds Laurie and Bob Kerslake happily hosted their wedding reception in Brentwood for multiple friends, and the same evening Bobbie Galpin hosted holiday cheer.
Gov. Pete Wilson and his wife, Gayle, again hosted their holiday celebration in Sacramento’s California State Railroad Museum in historic Old Town--a weeknight business attire affair.
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Mistletoe: Bonnie and Charles Black presented the most elegant buffet at their Christmas open house in Pacific Palisades.
Lynn and Hugh Evans and the Kerslakes were among early birds.
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Christmas Tea: Maria Hummer’s tea for ladies in Bel-Air was a special opportunity for friends to see her recently decorated Stone Canyon retreat, with sherbet colors blending with the Chinese blue porcelains and antiques.
Masses of pink roses matched the rose-wallpapered dining room, where chums sipped tea and ate yummy sandwiches and cookies nonstop.
Among friends--Sally Mogan, Jane Barrett, Jane Ackerman, Carolbeth Korn, Betsy Linkand and Susy Niven.
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Neighbors All: Sometimes neighbors like one another so much they conjure up jolly potlucks and sing-alongs.
Carolyn and Chuck Miller--their Pasadena house ravishingly pretty with the tall white-lighted tree, homey with daughters Candy and Mandy twirling in crisp holiday dresses and warm from the fireplace--brought together more than 60 neighbors with assistance from Lynn and Doug Brengel, Wendy and John Siciliano, Joan and Frank Thompson, Eileen and Bill Zimmerman, Ed and Gloria Clark, and Dr. Jack and Dianne Wilson.
The highlight came when the group sang Christmas carols around the piano, then divided into 12 lively sections for “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
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MNAM Group: It stands for Monday Night at Mortons. And a group of the restaurant’s regular Monday nighters invited their friends to the Caltech Athenaeum (beautifully trimmed with juniper and cedar and red ribbons) for Christmas cocktails.
The hosts:
Christie Bakaly, Penny and Adam Bianchi, Bill and Paulette Burkitt, Carlotta and Rusty Keely, James Klawiter, Debbie and Terry Lanni, Marcia Mohler, Gordon Pashgian, and Charles and Eileen Read.
Elsewhere on the Social Circuit
* Just a few hundred thousand dollars yet to go, says Pam Mullin, to complete the matching grant for Puente Learning Center. “We’ll make it.”
* You wouldn’t call him Dickensian, but Louie Bellson, the jazz drummer, composer and author, hit a big note with USC Friends of Music at its Dickens Dinner. He was given the Magnum Opus Award. Dean Larry Livingston introduced USC trustee John Argue, dinner chairman, at the Beverly Hills hotel affair. Benefit chairwoman Kathryn G. Fauble created an elegant Victorian salon in which Sheldon and Sandy Ausman became the first recipients of the Dickens Medals of Honor. Tables were $3,000. Ebenezer Scrooge, in long white nightgown and nightcap, wandered through the crowd, with the town crier, brass fanfares and all that jazz.
* Helen Lambros entertained at a luncheon for her Panamanian friend Dimitra Lymberopoulos, who was here visiting her daughter Julie Panagopoulos . . . The South Lake Business Assn., in conjunction with the Pasadena Symphony, launched the holidays with an exhibition of birdhouses, Christmas trees and Yule cuisine . . . Westridge School trustees rededicated their main building at a reception. Tours of the new technology centers followed . . . Geza Vermes, noted scholar on the Dead Sea Scrolls, brought Huntington Library supporters up-to-date on research at his lecture . . . Jim Longest, Jacob Maarse’s creative floral designer, dazzled Junior League Sustainers with flower hints over luncheon at the Bistro Garden . . . Tiffany & Co. Schlumberger director Pierce B. MacGuire, addressed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Costume Council on jewelry designer Jean Schlumberger recently. More than 200 Schlumberger designs are currently on view at the Louvre in Paris . . . The Order of Malta Auxiliary staged its “Day at the Races” chaired by Patrick Hickey to benefit El Santo Nino Community Center . . . Founding Associates of the French Foundation for Alzheimer Research, headed by event chairwoman Edna Silver, took to the Hollywood Park track to raise funds.
* Mary Lou Loper’s column is published Sundays.