Sunday at the fair

[jay]

After the last entry... patgreene got up from a nap and felt better, and I decided to go ahead and dress up for the Dickens Christmas Fair. It was rather overwhelming at first... the kids loved it.



The sounds and crowd affected patgreene a bit, but I liked the bustle. And bustles, on some costumes ;-). On Thanksgiving, dawnd had given me a red patterned waistcoat... I already had a formal shirt, shoes and trousers, but my tuxedo jacket was just too modern. On Saturday, I got an ascot and found a long jacket at a thrift store in Palo Alto. Pat pinned the sleeves, and we were off... nursing our wounded minivan through the rain to the Cow Palace.

Initially, I regretted dressing-up... I felt I was under/wrong-dressed for the 1/3 of the people there in period costuming, while too overdressed to be mundane. Encountering akienm and dawnd by chance in a shop, they had beautifully-detailed period costumes. Akien had his walking stick and a new cape and a gorgeous green silk waistcoat (that he'd made himself!). Dawn in a full hoopskirt and bonnet and gloves... beautiful. I actually felt rather intimidated around them because my own costuming fell well short of their standards... I wonder if that kind of thing happens at renfaires? I felt sheepish and quickly departed.

With Pat and the boys, we wandered... saw several shows (street theater, music hall, magic show, book reading, Scottish dancing troupe), played arcade-like games with the boys, admired penny-farthing bicycles, and were lucky to meet bdot while she was on a break from working in the teahouse. Keeping the kids together (and little hands off of breakables or first-edition books in shops) required constant attention. But worth it... David resumed talking in the faux-British accent that he'd adopted after seeing "Oliver!", and walked up to gentlemen and wished them a Happy Christmas :-). All of the males acquired new hats, too... We stayed until nearly closing... it was much fun, and even teenage-blase James got into the spirit after awhile. Hey, I'd go back.

And Pat took a photo of me after we babyed the car home:

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

A quick question about Fair orientation... is it vaguely West End to East End, class-wise and socially? I noticed a stratification between Mad Sal's and the V&A... not as observed by the booths, but in terms of the street performers and characters.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, it's whatever fits in the space, with no reference to any actual geography. But you might want to ask bdot directly, as she probably knows better than I.