Not everything that has to do with recycling involves putting leftover plastic parts and discarded soda cans into the blue bin for collection; sometimes, whole buildings get recycled. Case in point: San Francisco's famous Cow Palace, which was saved from demolition and now hosts the Dickens' Christmas Fair, through Sunday, December 18th.
Martin Harris, the Brit who plays Scrooge (and has for the past dozen years) recently explained to me in an interview that the 'creative genius' that brought us the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire (namely, Ron and Phyllis Patterson) also brought to San Francisco the Dickens' Christmas Fair & Victorian Holiday Party, which itself is now in its 33rd year. The fair (so touts their website) is spread out over "120,000 square feet of "theatrically-lit music halls, pubs, dance parties and Christmas shops on winding lanes. It's a twilight evening in Charles Dickens' London Town - a city filled with lively and colorful characters from both literature and history. Enticing aromas of roasted chestnuts and hearty foods fill the air. Cries of street vendors hawking their wares ring out above the bustling crowd. Dozens of lamplit shops are filled to overflowing with Christmas presents."
Still, it's one thing to state it - it's another to experience it: from singalongs at Mad Sal's Dockside Alehouse (with double-entendre meanings that make the songs hilarious, but still suitable for the young-ones), to the Siamsa Scottish & Irish Dancers doing reels, jigs and hard-shoes dances at Fezziwig's Warehouse, to the roving rendition of "A Christmas Carol," to meeting Mr. Charles Dickens himself (aka, actor Robert Young), the non-stop entertainment is what you go for.
So do some recycling of your own: dust off your grade-school knowledge of Charles Dickens' characters, pull out some rarely-used clothes from your closet and supplement them with a bit of second-hand clothing to complete your Victorian costume, retrieve those stored Christmas carol lyrics from the dusty corners of your brain, and join in the fun at the Dickens' Christmas Fair. Just like Scrooge, at the end of the evening you'll be glad you went on the journey.
