Who You Calling a Ho Ho Ho Ho?

What are you going to do? It’s December in Northern California’s city of Oakley, and, with 60-degree temps and clear blue skies, the Sunday choices seem to come down to a couple of rounds of Meyer Lemondrops on the front-porch Adirondack chairs at the house, or putting the Lisa Marie in gear for a trip south to the annual “Holidays in the Vineyards” fest in Livermore, home to our heretofore documented “Port Runs.”

Livermore won out, yet again (third year running, since we arrived in 2009).

Lots of changes in 2011 for Kathy and for me: Our two forever kitties, Otis and Taz, succumbed to the ravages of old age and their attendant medical probs; two new feline sisters, adopted from Tony LaRussa’s no-kill shelter, have made themselves at home by burrowing into the cushy blankets by Kath’s side as we watch “Once Upon a Time.”

Twenty-two years on the West Coast, and I’m still unsure as to how to celebrate Christmas (aka Das Holidays). I grew up in snow-laden Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, before moving to no-less-laden Toronto. New Year’s Day of 2008, I hopped a Scare Canada jet to Los Angeles to replicate the semi-quasi-sorta-kinda successful career as a comic-slash actor that I had up in the Great White North.

Didn’t exactly work out as the brochure promised.

And yet, Kathy, based in Seattle, and I met. In Orlando, FL. She was one of 40 actors hired, after a cross-USA search, to inaugurate a Disney theme park expansion. I, based in Los Angeles, was hired as writer-in-residence to provide audition, and subsequently, onsite material for this new company. Two months later, after opening day, my writer gig was done; the actors were on 12-month contracts. So many of these 40 relocated families and bought houses, only to find that 12 months hence, their contracts were not to be renewed.

Kathy’s contract was renewed for another year, but she declined, in favor of joining me in Beverly Hills (a guest house in the back, y’all, a guest house in the back).

Flashbacks, in random order: My first Christmas in L.A. County was to return to Ottawa with “Christmas in Beverly Hills” thematic stuff; the Tiffany bag for the purse pen or the Gumps postage stamp holder in its iconic sack was to be the wrapping. I remember that it was cloudy that morning in BH, and I decadently ducked into “The Ginger Man,” the erstwhile pub owned by the late greats Carroll O’Connor and Patrick O’Neal, for a “Blueberry Tea,” which incidentally contains neither blueberry nor tea.

Kathy and I do not own a car in Los Angeles, so we walk or take the bus everywhere. We get a Christmas tree on the outskirts of Beverly Hills, at an abandoned lot the other side of Doheny, and walk it back home toward Roxbury along Santa Monica Boulevard, past the Menorah. We are wearing shorts and bowling shirts.

This week, we bought a fake tree. The dilemma now: We now have a car, and we own no bowling shirts. Kath made up for the ordeal by getting some super-cool new ornaments, in order to make up for the reality that even cheapy firs are spendy; no matter how good your tree stand is, those three tree screws will drive you bugs, and you still have to add value to the tree in order for the Boy Scouts to pick it up curbside.

OK, I know that it is so wrong: My parents have had a fakey for as long as I can remember. I also grew up with no shoes in the house, and the front door was for company only. Slippers and garage, now.

And so we motor down south to Livermore, not necessarily on the “Port Run” that we’ve documented in previous posts. It’s their “Holiday” fest and all the usual “fee refundable with purchase” bets are off.

Turns out that we DID come back with more Port-style stuff. It was our third December down, but nothing to put into the time capsule this time. Except for Wood Family, open only a couple of times per year. Check out Kath's Zinfandel station.

First, there’s an old Woody Station Wagon parked pavement-side. And then, all the staff at the wine stations sport nametags with prefixes that would end in “wood”: “Pine,” “Chuck,” and “Home.” I nearly choked at the Syrah station manned by “Early.”

We bought the Merlot; could not believe it, since Washington state was the cradle of this stuff. When we lived in SF, we craved a fruit-forward glass when wandering around a cloudy Hayes Valley ‘hood.

We got the same vibe with the Wood Family “One Oak Vineyard” Livermore Valley Merlot. Nice fruit, nothing harsh. Some cedar and coffee that could permit this stuff to chill awhile.