Night Life

Image: Christa Wittmier

Getting in the Spirit

by Christa Wittmier | Dec 22, 2010

Night Life / Being a Christmas baby is not fun. There’s got to be people who hear me on this one. All of the excitement that starts to build around the holiday season leaves little room for excitement for you. As a kid, mine was bad times two–my sister is also a Christmas baby. The two of us not only got tons of nothing for our birthdays in lieu of Christmas presents, but eventually those dummies at Hallmark started to make cards that read, “Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday!” Yup. We didn’t even get birthday cards.

If any of you are trying for babies, I recommend being abstinent in the month of April. Trust me, your kids will love you later in life.

I love Christmas now. I’ve found a way to enjoy both my own birthday and the holiday season: I throw the biggest party I can to celebrate the end of my year and the calendar year. It works.

Speaking of holiday spirit, I spent more time than I should have muting people in my UberTwitter over this past week. Friends griping about traffic or the rain or–especially–the holidays in general, got a five-day timeout period. Because these are mostly people I know in person, I can’t unfollow them on Twitter, but I can certainly quiet them down so there are no Debbie Downers to burst my bubble of Christmas happiness. With the exception of my Twitter feed, this past week was perfection in terms of Christmas spirit. I was half expecting people to be griping about paying $25 to go out to any of the Downtown bars on Saturday for the 12 Bars of Christmas but the reception was a very warm one. I found myself (yet again) running out of a star-studded Christmas party for the cast and crew of Hawaii Five-0 at the new Villa nightclub at Aloha Tower to check in at Soho for my special T-shirt and Santa hat. I wasn’t quite prepared for what was happening when I got there, mostly because it was 8pm sharp on a Saturday night. The place was already alive and buzzing, and it wasn’t just from the dozens of high-profile media and hot chicks we see around town, it was pro surfers like Sean Moody and Fred Patacchia, late, late, late night crawler Cameron Peppers, pro-skateboarder Chris Kays and his crew, and pretty much everyone I work with at my day job. I don’t think I’ve seen such a massive charity event with so many moving parts pulled together by a non-promoter like that. Just looking at the back of those shirts, it’s a hot mess of people involved. We all have to hand it to Mark Becker. He really made it happen. The entire evening was full of those T-shirts and Santa hats all over downtown, and even though it took Shake & Pop a little bit longer to get started, the entire room was packed and applauding the DJs when the lights came on at the end of the night. I’m not sure how many of you get to see that happen, but it is a very special thing.

Earlier in the week was one of my favorite Art & Flea events to date at Fresh Café. They had their ugly sweater contest and photo booth, which is our generation’s way of really getting in the spirit. There was also Los Angeles DJ Sammy Chavez from FIERO, who just happened to be in town and was making an extremely noticeable difference in the atmosphere of the popular hipster flea market. It was the fastest, least crowded, cheapest and most fun way to do all of my holiday shopping in one swoop. I can’t wait for my loved ones to see what treasures I found for them.

Check it out

[artandflea.com]

[soundcloud.com]

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