{"id":709,"date":"2012-11-15T00:25:57","date_gmt":"2012-11-15T08:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelophile.com\/?p=709"},"modified":"2012-12-02T16:20:55","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T00:20:55","slug":"a-dickens-of-a-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/?p=709","title":{"rendered":"A Dickens of a Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Couple<\/a>

Photograph courtesy of Raymond Van Tassel\/Red Barn Productions
and used with permission.<\/p><\/div>\n

by Noella Noelophile<\/em>\u2122<\/p>\n

“Owe, cahmon, doan’t be bloody pahrty-poopahs!” insisted a woman in a poke bonnet and a perfect Cockney accent.<\/p>\n

Her persuasive talents won out.\u00a0 The reluctant celebrants joined her in a spirited reel on the dance floor at Fezziwig’s Warehouse–and went on to waltz of their own volition.<\/p>\n

This moment from the 1978 Great Dickens Christmas Fair<\/a>–this reporter’s introduction to this unique celebration–remains a favorite memory of my first Christmas in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

At San Francisco’s Cow Palace, that long-ago afternoon, Living History Society members in full Victorian costume recreated conversations and sang songs that might well have reached Dickens’ ears as he worked out the plot of A Christmas Carol<\/em>.\u00a0 There were short plays, crafts of all kinds, Victorian games and excellent food (the mulled cider and gingerbread were favorites!).<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to 2012.\u00a0 Not only is the Great Dickens Christmas Fair<\/a> going strong, thirty-four years later–it’s added new features to celebrate the bicentennial of Charles Dickens’ birth!<\/p>\n

2012 Fairgoers can now see a Victorian sideshow in Richardson’s Empire of Wonders…watch a performance at the new “Christmas Carol” environmental theatre…and enjoy brand-new sweets called “Confounding Confections”!\u00a0 According to the Great Dickens Fair’s website<\/a>, these are all-natural vegan, gluten-free Christmas candies.<\/p>\n

On a Scrooge-ish budget?\u00a0 The Fair does offer print-at-home discount tickets until December 5th!<\/a><\/p>\n

The 2012 Great Dickens Christmas Fair opens Thanksgiving Friday, November 23rd, at 10:00 a.m., and runs for five weekends, through Sunday, December 23rd.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Noella Noelophile\u2122 “Owe, cahmon, doan’t be bloody pahrty-poopahs!” insisted a woman in a poke bonnet and a perfect Cockney accent. Her persuasive talents won out.\u00a0 The reluctant celebrants joined her in a spirited reel on the dance floor at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[127,126,124,123,125],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-events","tag-charles-dickens","tag-cow-palace","tag-dickens-christmas-faire","tag-great-dickens-christmas-faire","tag-victorian-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1231,"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions\/1231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noelophile.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}