The lights fantastic ... Christmas decorations in LA. Photograph: Lisa Marks
My first Christmas in America felt like Thanksgiving Part Deux, comprising of vast amounts of turkey, pumpkin pie and sofa-sitting. It was a lot like Christmas in the UK but without the Brucie bonus of Boxing Day or the Dr Who Christmas Special.
I spent the week in sunny yet chilly San Diego and have just returned home to the Marina with a suitcase full of dirty laundry, various bottles of wine and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I watched with friends over a four-day period. I'm now dreaming in Orc which is disturbing to say the least.
I was introduced to the joyous American legend that is A Christmas Story. This cutsey 1983 film has the kind of festive cult status we bestow upon Morecambe and Wise. TBS ran it non-stop for 24 hours from 8pm on Christmas Eve. It barely registered on my radar but I remember hearing that Bob Clark, who wrote and directed it, had died in a car crash in April. The story naturally made all the headlines (he also wrote and directed Porky's) but I had no idea why A Christmas Story was so beloved by millions until I sat through the tale of Ralphie, a wide-eyed nine year old who has to convince his parents to buy him a rifle for Christmas. It's a comedy set in the 1940's and gives Ralphie an adult voice-over, making it a trailblazer for The Wonder Years. What makes it so great is that it's not sugarcoated; Ralphie gets bullied, is disciplined by his parents and does a lot of crying. He's played brilliantly by Peter Billingsly, who is now a producer, working with Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn (who incidentally my housemate Virginie and I saw separately on the same day a couple of weekends ago cycling through Venice - we believe he's stalking us but could be wrong).
It's odd spending Christmas in a sunny climate. I looked out of the window on Christmas morning seriously expecting to see snow, instead I found myself gazing upon palm trees. Later that afternoon we went for a walk around the neighbourhood and I saw my first real life racoon scrounging for food scraps. You don't get that in North London. And you don't get the kind of commitment to Christmas we saw later that night; there's a surburban street in San Diego which boasts the kind of lights Regent Street would be proud of. Those in the know flock there to gaze in wonderment at the multi-coloured twinkle-thon, while locals sell hot chocolate at the end of their driveways. My retinas are still in recovery.
Now I'm home alone until Virginie returns from France but I have a friend's cat, Cookie, to look after. As I write this, she is hiding on the top shelf of my wardrobe, wondering why her world turned upside down about two hours ago.
Film news as you can tell is thin on the ground but right now my script is with a couple of agents who are reading it over the holidays. The WGA strike continues with the lack of pay starting to bite. I registered Maconie's List with the Writer's Guild a couple of weeks ago - you can do it online for $20. I feel strongly that writers need all the help and protection they can get; when I was writing in London with my ex-partner we sent a lot of ideas out to various producers and subsequently I can point to at least three similar productions that have graced your screens. We never got any credit or money. I suppose it could be coincidence but then again ...
However, I don't want to end my last blog of the year on a downer, so I'll leave you with this picture of the aforementioned Christmas lights. Now I have to go drink more wine and talk Orc to the cat. It's the only thing that might persuade her to come down ...
