The Valley Wire - 12/21 Column

Christmas in Tinsel Town
By Mary Beth Gentle

Christmas, Hollywood style. It’s that time of year when the overstuffed gift baskets and bottles of wine start pouring in like snow falling on the Prairies. Of course, for the row upon row of entertainment assistants sitting in the cubicles it’s more like snow falling on Hollywood Boulevard. Not going to happen. But, the flurry surrounding the ‘gift’ arrival is still exciting. For those of us sitting in our cubicles, we can hear the gift laden mail carts creaking down the hallway and one can’t help feeling like a little kid at Christmas. Is it going to stop at my office? Will it be for me?

Of course, when the mailroom kid does stop, it is only to have someone sign for the basket that gets added to the pile overtaking your boss’s desk. Which is really okay, because most of the time they will throw a basket or two your way to help spread the office Holiday cheer. And when you go home at the end of the day with your basket of gourmet food and you put your new bottle of ten dollar mustard next to your squeeze bottle of yellow store brand mustard you can’t help but catch some of that Holiday cheer yourself.

It only takes a few leftover gift baskets and before you know it that cheer is spreading throughout the cubicles in the office. People start wrapping their normally grey cubicle walls in Santa paper, stringing shiny gold garland around their IMacs and lighting up their fake pink sparkling Christmas trees. Even the really ‘cool’ Hollywood Assistants can’t help hanging a decoration or two. Because it is that time of year where the real work slows down and all of our energies shift to planning the Department Holiday party.

There are actual meetings about these events. There are budgets done, schedules are created, heck, I think they even make T-shirts. A lot goes into the planning of these productions, for a brief moment we all become crew members working on a very low budget movie. Because to those in the cubicles this could be the only Hollywood Christmas Party we get invited to.

As with any major Hollywood production, ideas start out really, really big. The excitement is everywhere when you hear that for five minutes the Holiday party might actually take place at Spago. I mean who would have thought that our little Holiday Party could be important enough to become a Spago event. For once I might actually be on the invite list for a party worth crashing. But, of course, when the budget is reviewed it becomes clear that Spago is not in our future. We quickly downgrade the plan to cocktails at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. Which would still be okay, if it’s a good night we might even get to see Brittany take out a few Paparazzi’s.

But, when the ‘powers that be’ review the budget plan, reality really starts to sink in and the Accountants quickly inform us that our party will not take place at any trendy Hollywood hot spot, nor could it be downgraded to a ‘small but trendy’ spot on Ventura Boulevard in the Valley. We would, again, be holding our Holiday party in the Commissary, on a weeknight, after work.

There are a few moments of disappointment throughout the corridors, the ‘cool’ Hollywood Assistants even take their few Holiday decorations down in protest, but at the end of the day a party is still a party. And this is where the real movie making magic comes into play. Because the one thing Hollywood has always done right, they know how to put on a show. With a few calls to the Prop Department, the lighting Department and the gathering of a lot of Holiday Basket leftovers, a once dreary cafeteria is transformed into a Winter Wonderland for a terrific Holiday Party…Hollywood style.

I hope you all have a wonderful Holiday Season and I’ll be back after the New Year with an update on the Writers Strike with word directly from the Picket line. For now I’m off to enjoy my gift basket of gourmet food because after the New Year I’m back to Store brand delicacies and regular old commissary food. Happy Holidays from the Hollywood Cubicle!