Whenever I travel, I think about buying real estate wherever I am. I live in Los Angeles. I love my Hollywood neighborhood. Due to the peculiarities of the housing market, there are two houses on my block which have been for sale for over a year. I’d be pleased to own either one of them, but they both list at more than a mil, despite the fact that clearly nobody is rushing to pay that for either of them. So I rent. Even if I had a million and a half dollars to drop on real estate, which alas I currently do not, I wouldn’t spend it on something unlikely to appreciate and unlikely to sell for what I paid for it. This sort of thing causes me to drool at the costs for houses in Portland and even shopping malls in Baltimore. I travel and I think I could just write a check for a house in many cities yet I despair of ever buying one in Los Angeles.

But then something like Hunky Santa rolls around and reminds me why I can never leave La-La-Land. For the last half dozen years, my favorite local mall, the Beverly Center in Beverly Hills, has featured a Hunky Santa. (I probably spend more at South Coast Plaza where I get my hair cut, but that is in another county and thus does not count as local.) This year, Hunky Santa has been getting a frantic flurry of attention, way above and beyond prior years, because they cast Eli Wilhide as Hunky Santa and he is remarkably perfect for the role, in both appearance and personality presentation. According to All Things Christmas, in order to play the sexy son of Old Saint Nick, one had to best 350 other applicants for the job of Hunky Santa. Eli Wilhide brings his experience as an Anthony Robbins motivational speaker or Peak Performance Strategist to the role of Hunky Santa. Eli Wilhide certainly works at that peak performance thang, as evidenced by his diet and workout tips for the LA Times and of course the results of his regimen.

As Xmas approaches, during the week and early in the day, the Beverly Center features Classic Santa and then, on weekends later in the day, Hunky Santa and the Candy Cane girls do hourly performances thereafter. A lot of people show up for this hourly act and some dress up their dogs or children in red ribbons or Santa hats to get into the holiday spirit for the occasion. There are two huge red silks hung down multiple floors of the mall for female acrobatic Candy Cane girls to contort on. The shows also feature those dances where the chick waves the ribbon around and does impressive flexible moves, like they had during the Olympics. I admit that, here at Blue Blood Global Secret HQ, we did refer to the ribbon event as the Stripper Olympics, but I digress. The Candy Cane girls also included a particularly awesome and effervescent stilt-walker.

After each show, both Hunky Santa and the Candy Cane girls move through the considerable audience making people feel holiday cheer and just radiating a certain pleasant warmth. I think that kind of intense close-up attention would make me hyperventilate with social anxiety after a few days, but I was extremely impressed with how welcome and joyous Hunky Santa and the Candy Cane Girls were able to make shoppers feel. They really brought an upbeat vibe to an otherwise less-than-cheery holiday shopping crowd.

So I will always love that Los Angeles is the kind of place where they would be able to cast the perfect Hunky Santa and have incredibly talented Candy Cane Girls. Just for weekend performances at the mall.

In 2005, an Alaskan named Billy Powers and his kids built a sixteen foot snowman. It is not clear how the giant Frosty lookalike came to be known by the moniker of Snowzilla, but the attributes of being monstrously giant and made of snow probably both had something to do with it.

There is nothing like an enormous snowman to capture the hearts and minds of people who love to frolic in the snow. I hope the denizens of Anchorage enjoy frolicking in the snow. According to City Data, Anchorage has a significantly above average crime rate, but Alaskans get to enjoy sixty inches of snow a year to make up for the extra arson, assault, murder, and so forth. Then again, the Anchorage airport is named after extremely indicted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, so maybe the people of Anchorage enjoy crime more than snow after all is said and done.

Somebody in Anchorage sure is Grinch-y, anyway, because city zoning stopped the Powers family and friends from completing their annual Snowzilla in 2008. Apparently, some Scrooge felt that the joyful snow behemoth disrupted traffic patterns by attracting rubberneckers and camera crews. Reportedly, all but the head of Snowzilla was complete when the order for his execution was handed down. Snowzilla may be missing his head, but some people in Anchorage are going to be getting coal in their stockings this year for lacking a heart.

All that glitters may not be gold, but I love it. I am a magpie for tinsel and colored lights. I think Santa hats are all adorable.

Only I’m not a holiday person. My parents eloped and haven’t been cool with a special occasion since. They would rather see their offspring any day of the year which does not fall on a holiday, birthday, or other special commemorative occasion. So I admit that the whole December freak-out thing misses me. Occasionally other people get me thoughtful gifts and I appreciate them. But mostly I enjoy the decorations and the eating a lot.

Many people believe that suicide rates climb through the roof during the Winter Solstice, Xmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, etc. season. Countless serious psychological studies and demographics analyses have entirely debunked the notion that suicides go up during Christmas. In point of fact, on average, fewer people either commit suicide or attempt suicide (parasuicide is the bonus vocabulary word of the day!) around the December 24 and December 25 dates and the month surrounding them.

The faulty theory is that lonely people are made more aware of their loneliness during a time of year when others can be visibly seen getting their connectedness groove on. There is also the Seasonal Affective Disorder concept that those afflicted with SAD (Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!) are more, uhm, sad during the less sunny months. Unless they get high end tanning beds under the tree.

The reality of Christmas suicide is that people socialize more in December. They eat more delicious food in December. They deny themselves less in December. They reach out and connect with their fellow man better in December. So they may be more stressed, but they are less depressed and kill themselves less often in December.

New Years, on the other hand, is a whole nother ball o’ death. Many studies have found a significant uptick in suicides and parasuicides as people ring in the New Year. I know I like to use the New Year as an opportunity for reflection and resolution, so maybe some people don’t like what they reflect on. Of course, more people kill themselves at the beginning of the workweek than on the weekends, so January 1 suicides may just be about the horror of having to go back to work.

At any rate, you can relax about Xmas because New Years Eve is actually the day you have to worry about. Aren’t you glad to get to procrastinate your self-harm another week? This will give you more time for shopping. I know I’m thinking about going to the Beverly Center mall and checking out Hunky Santa and the acrobat Xmas sluts later today.