It was the best of holidays. It was the worst of holidays. In Charles Dickens’ time, street waifs begged for crumbs of bread and bootblacks were as common as gruel. How is it that we transformed the Dickensian nightmare into an annual holiday event of fun and frivolity? Easy…we pretend.
Frankly, that’s fine with me because this isn’t 19th century Great Britain (thank kippers!) and I’m not a starving waif. Ok, I’m not a waif.
Anyway, like the Crips and Bloods without the drive-bys or the Jets and the Sharks without the singing, dancing and overt homosexuality, there are rival Dickens holiday celebrations this weekend. We don’t anticipate there will be dueling bobbies, but we can’t be certain.
The thirty-third annual Dickens on the Strand happens this weekend in Galveston. I’ve been a couple of times and it’s a bit like the Renaissance Festival without the cleavage (damnit!).
A little closer to home (and significantly closer to MY home), is the Dickens in the Heights celebration that coincides with both the Heights Holiday Home Tour and the Heights First Saturday Mistletoe Madness. K and I will be attending this tonight and no doubt shooting lots of twinkly-lit photos of merriment. The home tour is great because you get to snoop through the drawers of visit the lovely homes of Heights residents and rifle through their closets with impunity see their lovely holiday decor.
On Saturday, our friends Elaine and Christine will make their first official appearance at the Yale Street Arts Market under the banner of their new photography business, Fresh Photography. That’s so great for them! Woot!
Should be a holiday weekend filled with drunken wenches and street urchins the wonder of the holiday season. Enjoy!