December
“Deep in December, it’s nice to remember Although you know the snow will follow . . .” – Tom Jones, “Try to Remember” from “the Fantasticks,” 1960
We have spoken about Christmas in past Decembers – how could it be otherwise? Christmas is probably the most important holiday in our culture and is for many more nations and peoples around the world. It’s founded on a religious observance, but it has grown to include a great range of other aspects of our daily lives at this time of the year. We have written about Christmas trees and the lots where they were sold, the plays, programs and pageants once produced by Hawthorne schools, the history of Christmas cards, the rare snowfalls in Southern California, the holiday dances for our young people, the turkeys, the many preparations we undertake to make Christmas joyful – and more.
Most of the peoples of our world have some kind of holiday or religious observance or ceremony to mark this point in the year, clustered around the astronomical moment in the Northern Hemisphere when the interval between sunrise and sunset is the shortest. It reaches back into prehistory, to the day when men (all-gender mankind) realized that time does not need to be seen only as a straight line moving irreversibly forward, but can be divided into equal cycles and thus can be measured and used to schedule the things that need to be done to survive and to prosper. Christmas has evolved from that realization and, like its related holidays created by our fellow men, it has acquired the respect we pay to the important days in our lives.
And since the cycle repeats annually, memories can be made and kept on Christmas – one for each and every year of our lives. They’re rewards for all the effort we put into following our Christmas traditions. Good memories.
The Art Of Shopping
Got to make a dent in that Christmas shopping! You’ve been spending hours on the internet, but you just can’t hit on the right gifts for the special people on your list. Then there’s the delivery. Will you get your purchases in time to get them wrapped and ready? And who’s going to be around when the delivery service dumps them on the front porch? These days, you can’t take chances.
You can spend hours, bumper-to-bumper on Hawthorne Blvd, trying to get to South Bay Center or Del Amo Fashion Center or Peninsula Center – or forever on the freeway getting to Citadel Outlets or The Grove.
Well, there’s a simple solution. It’s just a few blocks away and it’s open ‘til 10 p.m. weeknights. It’s the Hawthorne Plaza shopping center, the place “where Christmas happens first,” and it’s got everything you need.
You can always find parking in the multi-level parking structures or in the subterranean lot. There are escalators and an elevator to take to ground floor level and several bridges to cross from the parking structure to right near the stores you want to visit on the upper level. The mall just opened in February – it’s modern and fresh inside and festively decorated for Christmas.
Hawthorne Plaza is anchored by three major department stores: the Broadway and national chains, J. C. Penney and Montgomery Ward, each with a full range of merchandise from household furnishings to fashions. There are 133 speciality stores within easy walking distance and more preparing to open. There’s plenty of seating, places to eat and many other services for shoppers when you’re ready to take a break. You can even enter to win one of fifty Shopping Sprees, with prizes ranging from $50 to $1000.
If you’re looking for women’s fashions, you can visit Contempo Casuals, Nobby, Foxmoor, Lerner Shops, Parklane Hosiery, Susie’s Casuals, Nancy Craig and many more. Contempo Casuals suggest that “Disco baby can put it all together with a ciré jacket, satin pants, hat and disco bag in powder puff pastels.”
You’ll find books and more at B. Dalton Pickwick, records, tapes and stereo components in Musicland, “headgear” at Chan’s Wigs, cb’s at Radio Shack, children’s casual and dress clothes at Hansel-NGretel, luxurious coats, boots and purses at Wilson’s House of Suede and Leather, stocking stuffers at Hoffman’s Beauty Supply, whatever you want in music at the Wherehouse. The “high scorer on the pinball machines” at Electronic America “wins a free pizza at Lord Byron Pizza Pub weekly.”
Does jewelry figure in your plans for someone special? Waiting to assist you are the folks at Daniel’s Jewelers, Ryan’s Men’s Shop and Jewelers, the House of Turquoise, Zale’s Jewelers and J. Herbert Hall. Gordon’s Jewelers says, “you’ll always beat the crowds when you beat the clock with a Seiko watch to flatter the wrist of ladies and the wallets of men.”
The men of Hawthorne are looking forward to thoughtfully chosen presents from Jack’s Men’s Wear, the Brick Shirt House (really!), Chess King, Topps and Trowsers, Zeidler & Zeidler and K-G Men’s Wear. The Boardwalk wants you to know “you’ll take a trip around the world of men’s fashion when you take a trip through the Boardwalk . . . oh, and take Santa with you!”
Red Eye, Miller’s Outpost and California T-Shirts are ready to dress everyone in the latest casual look. Miller’s Outpost advises “pick up a two piece jeans suit . . . or two jeans and a top . . . or coveralls . . . and then cover all and gently place under [the] Christmas tree.
Is this almost-effortless shopping working up your appetite? No worries. Hawthorne Plaza has a table set for you offering everything you could desire, whether it’s sit-down, snacks, takeaway or gifts: Baskin-Robbins, Karmelkorn, Carl’s Jr. Restaurant, Little Dragon Chinese Snax, Carousel Snack Bar, Lord Byron Pizza Pub, Chuckburger, Morrow’s Nut House, EJ’s Barbeque Pit, Orange Julius, The Cookie Factory, See’s Candies, The Cooperage, Plaza Family Restaurant & Bar, English House of Seafood, Supreme Donuts, General Nutrition, The Swiss Colony, Granny’s Real Ice Cream Bars, Tacos Al Carbon, Honey Glazed Hams, Tiffany’s Bakery, Hot Dog On A Stick, The Yogurt Place, Hot Sam Pretzel and Zax Deli/Restaurant. You could dine for a week and never move the car!
When you get back to shopping, there’s footwear for the whole family at Thom McAn For Family and -For Men, Cap’n Maury Buster Brown, Regal Shoes, Footlocker, Hardy Shoes, Gallenkamp’s, Mailings, Florsheim Shoes, Stride Rite Bootery, Hanover Shoes, Naturalizer West. Leeds tells you “these boots are made for walkin’ in high style right into his heart . . . good boots . . . good prices . . . good to know.”
If your feet are getting a little weary, put them up for a while at AMC Hawthorne Six Theatres and take in one of the biggest movies of the year, like “Saturday Night Fever,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Smokey and the Bandit” or “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.”
Before you leave, peruse the potential gifts at International Imports or Nojima Gifts, pick up ribbon and name tags at M-J Hallmark Shop or Memory Lane Cards & Gifts and take a long look at a big color TV at Ken Crane’s Magnavox City. They say “the Rose Bowl will never look better . . . and the drinks will never taste colder with gifts for him and her from here!”
And the Christmas shopping has never been easier, but now it’s time to get back to your car, pull out of December, 1977 and take that long drive back to the present.
“Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone”
– Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi,” 1971
In 1906, the Andersons and the Waddels awoke to watch the first Christmas Day arrive in Hawthorne. They, and others, lived in a handful of houses standing on a few roads graded into dry fields where beans and barley had once grown. Occasionally, a new electric streetcar rolled to a temporary halt on tracks nearby with a clang of its bell.
Year by year, others came to join them – building more homes, businesses, factories, services, home farms, apartments, hotels, schools, places of worship – until the structures stood side-by-side and the City was a bustling community of nearly 90,000 people, living, working, playing and dreaming.
From the beginning, we were people of different ethnicities, backgrounds, political views and religious practices and have remained so, to become the vibrant and vigorous citizenry of Hawthorne today. For 118 years, all those who could, put their work aside, to make Christmas a day of relaxation, connection and celebration and a moment to seek the best things life has to offer.
Our Society continues the work to record the story of our city. As another Christmas and new year open before us, we, who have been honored to serve as your Board members this year, hope you will find the best things life has to offer.
