First off: I’m back from vacation, yay! Phoenix was great. Very relaxing.

I know it’s kind of late to be talking about Christmas Eve, but this was too intriguing not to bring up. Does anyone else out there know about the Blue Mansion Christmas Eve party? It’s in a big old house on Haskell, near City Place. (Just past Dolly Python.) It’s held every year and it’s open to the public. But they don’t send invitations so word travels purely by word of mouth. I heard about it this year, so some friends and I decided to go.

The house was amazing, in an eccentric way. New Age-y paintings decorated the walls (i.e., naked men in yoga poses), and the floors slanted sharply downward. A second-floor inside balcony called out for someone (maybe me?) to dress up like Scarlett O’Hara and wave to her adoring crowd. Apparently the house used to be a church, but now it’s a bunch of different apartments and studio spaces for artists. There’s a huge, neat attic with exposed rafters and a basement crammed with old stuff. Outside they’ve got a big patio and fire pits.

The grounds were PACKED — there had to be at least 300 people there. Everyone looked like they came from a different stripe of society: young, grungy East Dallasites, older hippies, children (they all had clothes on, don’t worry), and normal-looking middle-aged folks. Someone had set up a huge spread in the main room with turkey and ham and cheese and pies. Drinks were BYOB.

We wandered around, and met a cool hippie lady named Randy and her orange-tanned Iggy Pop-look-alike boyfriend. A friend said the whole place reminded him of Austin. We’ll have to go back next year.

Posted by Lesley Téllez at 10:38 AM | Permalink
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