—2—
manodiod
in this issue
November 22. 1985
3 POTPOURRI
This page's stories will vary from week to week. This week, Sunday
night's performance of the Hubbard Street Dance Company opened
and ended with a bang, and The Producers and The Executives will
play the night before Bonfire.
JAY BLINDERMAN
4 Christmas comes earlier each year
For the retailers that is. Retailers do a lot of their business in the holi
day season, so they plan sales and promotions to capture consumers'
attention and business, hoping people will buy sooner and buy more.
jay BLINDERMAN 5 What to do when Santa comes too soon
Our writer is sick of Christmas advertisements and displays coming as
early as October and proposes five solutions to the problem.
tricia PARKER 6 'Dickens on The Strand' relives Victorian times
One weekend every December the Galveston Historical Foundation
holds a festival to celebrate Victorian England. The characters of
Charles Dicken's stories come alive in the streets of the Strand.
THE STAFF 8 A peek under the At Ease tree
If Neiman-Marcus can have a Christmas catalog, well then so can we.
At Ease searched high and low for the perfect gifts for those loved ones
who thought they had everything
WENDY JOHNSON 10 'Krush Groove' not much more than rappin' music
'Krush Groove' gets only two stars out of five; its music is about the
only thing it has going for it.
It's beginning to look a lot like
Christmas — thanks to advertisers and
retailers from coast to coast. They're
promoting — nay commerializing —
the holiday earlier this year because
Thanksgiving falls a week later than
last year. They want to make sure that
we still have plenty of time to shop.
But because Texas residents were re
stricted by the Blue Law last year, there
were only 27 shopping days left after
Thanksgiving. This year, due to the
laws repeal, there are actually 26
shopping days before Christmas. Gee,
it's so thoughtful of those advertisers to
unleash a barrage of commercials and
store displays to let us know that we'll
be shorted one precious day of gift-pur-
chasing pleasure.
We wanted to make sure we weren't
just imagining all of this, so we as
signed one of our writers to talk to some
area retailers. They admitted that their
highest sales figures came during the
Christmas season, but they were
hardly as money-hungry as their ad
vertisements make them seem. Some
agreed that the commercialization of
Christmas competes with the tradi
tional meaning of the holiday, but no
major changes were predicted.
Our writer wasn't happy with this
bleak prediction, so he proposed five
solutions to keep the Christmas season
from creeping too far back. Most of the
methods would be unconstitutional,
but the underlying sentiments of his
campaign are commendable.
If you really want to return to the
days of a non-commercial Christmas,
then "Dickens of The Strand" is for you.
For one weekend every December, this
historic district in Galveston turns into
Victorian England, complete with char
acters from Charles Dickens' stories ca
rousing through the streets. You're apt
to find several Bob Cratchits and Tiny
Tims trying to coax the yuletide spirit
out of penny-pinching Scrooges.
If you're feeling a little like Scrooge
yourself, maybe a peek under the At
Ease Christmas tree will drive your
"Bah Humbugs" away. We believe
these tongue-in-c/uc items are topical
enough to be truly appreciated by any
Aggie on your gift list.
Finally, we'll risk sounding hypocriti
cal (since it's only Nov. 22) and wish you
a very merry Christmas. □
— at ease co-editors
at ease staff
Co-editors Cathy Riely
Walter Smith
Writers Jay Blinderman
Mary Cox
Wendy Johnson
Tricia Parker
Photographer Bill Hughes