***Ed note: I’m on holiday in Mexico. I’ll reply to comments posted on the site once I’m home. Feliz año nuevo! —John***

Guess where to spot the best Christmas lights in San Francisco. Union Square? Nope. The number-one light display is not corporately sponsored. High on Castro Hill, at 3650 21st Street, stands a little gingerbread Victorian, dwarfed by a 30-foot-high tree covered in lights and surrounded by gift-wrapped boxes as big as Volkswagen Beetles. And the entire scene is scaled to look as if the tree were only five feet tall.

The house vanishes behind the decorations. The garage serves as a sort of fireplace, above which hang two eight-foot-high stockings brimming with gigantic teddy bears. A smiling stuffed polar bear rides an oversized model train around the tree skirt, while a matchstick carnival spins and whirs nearby.

Twenty years ago, Tom Taylor and his partner Jerry (yes, Tom and Jerry) bought a tiny Norfolk Island pine at Costco that grew like mad. They soon planted it in the front yard and started decorating it. As the tree grew, so did the display. Now they need a 60-foot cherry picker to string the lights, a task that takes two men an entire week to complete.

Santa shows up every evening to hand out candy canes—approximately 5,000 of them in a single season. He used to distribute 15,000 in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, “but that was in the days before car seats,” says Tom. Now parents have to hassle with strapping in one or two kids instead of piling ten of them into the back of a station wagon. Fewer come around these days. Make the effort. Show the kids that Santa doesn’t live in shopping centers, but in the imaginations of wacky locals who put on shows for free.
To get here, take the J Church to 21st St, and walk up the hill.

Two Last-Minute Easy Gift Ideas

Idea #1: Dulce de Leche
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cash-strapped and stuck for presents? Make instant dulce de leche, an effortless task with big payoff. Here’s how to do it the fast way. (Purists may disagree, but this recipe is awesome.)
—Take several unopened cans of sweetened condensed milk, and remove their labels.
—Crisscross a few teaspoons across the bottom of a deep pot.
—Put the unopened cans on top of the teaspoons, and fill the pot with enough water to completely submerge the cans.
—Place the pot on the stove, and bring water to a rolling boil.
—Cook for 90 minutes, ensuring the cans remain entirely submerged; add water as necessary. (The teaspoons prevent the cans from making direct contact with the bottom of the pot and dangerously overheating—and potentially exploding. Ensure the cans do not lay flat or seal against the pot!) You can cook it longer—up to four hours—if you like the concoction very dark and caramelized, but 90 minutes does the trick.
—Allow the cans to cool. Once at room temperature, spoon the contents into 8oz mason jars.
—Slap on a ribbon and voilà! Serve with apple slices, ice cream, toast, dark chocolate, or straight out of the jar.

Idea #2: Give a Needy Kid a Toy
There’s a fantastic charity called My Two Front Teeth, which helps disadvantaged kids get one specific toy they want for Christmas. Browse the site to read kids’ profiles, which include crayon drawings and their favorite things, then choose the one you want to sponsor. Gifts start at about $20, chump change for most, but a big deal for these kids. And you can donate in someone else’s name, elevating your reputation. Do it right now. You’ll feel good. I did.

I’m on an adventure. I begin this post at SFO, en route to Morocco where I’m to shoot the pilot of a new international TV series. And guess what? I’m the presenter. The show follows Lonely Planet writers as we discover off-the-beaten-path locales for adventurous travelers. I can’t quite wrap my head around the implications of this (nor do I want to), but I do know that the next three weeks will change my life.

I can’t speak publicly of the broadcaster or distributor, but I will say this: they are household names. The show will be a 13-episode series. I’ll host at least two, potentially more. It will premier next autumn in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America; then will be distributed worldwide by ___. I’ll keep you posted as things develop. I must say, I’m psyched to be one of our city’s first international ambassadors following Obama’s election. It’s a good time to be an American abroad!

On the subject of our fair city, did you know that until recently, SFO was the only airport in America that had zero advertising? Instead our lovely terminals were adorned exclusively with well-curated art installations. Then, around the year 2000, nasty Clear Channel quietly began blighting our public commons—with no public comment period that I ever heard about. Since then, billboards and kiosks have multiplied like cancer cells in the domestic terminal, ruining the aesthetic. The international terminal remains mostly untouched—for now. SFO is owned by the city, and thus belongs to us. Speak up. Protests are back. Reclaim public art now!
But I can’t think about SF at present. I’m writing from seat 12-J, aboard UA930, somewhere over Hudson Bay, just wrapping up the cheese course of my supper—and I’m having such a fabulous time in business class (a rare indulgence) that I don’t even want to pop an Ambien. (For the record, and from the point of view of an expert, United’s premium-cabin service needs upgrading, but it sure beats economy.) Expect silence from me till at least mid-December, when I return from North Africa. Meanwhile, remember to remove the wishbones from your holiday turkeys before roasting to ensure long, even slices of breast meat. And a very happy Thanksgiving to all! —John

Editor’s note: I’m in Morocco till mid-December shooting a television travel show. If you post a comment on the site, be patient. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. —John

I escaped to the De Young Museum last week to check out the new Yves St Laurent exhibition, one in a trifecta of special exhibits. Maya Lin’s Systemic Landscapes inspired me to reconsider spatial constructions, and the Asian-American Modern Art installation forced a revisiting of the definition of American Modernism, but the YSL show struck me most.

At a time when Gucci looks uncannily like upgraded Banana Republic, and everyone dresses like high-schoolers, it’s hard to imagine that a single designer could change social mores. YSL did. He took ladies from wasp-waisted dresses (think June Cleaver) and put them into pants suits and tuxedos, effectively hijacking the authority of men’s power clothing and bestowing it upon women. He introduced new color palettes, playful shapes, see-through fabrics. Not since Dior, and Balenciaga before him, had a designer so changed women’s silhouettes.

So what makes these 120 works worthy of a fine-arts-museum show? In a word, timelessness. Wigless mannequins emphasize the freshness and innovation of the designs: add contemporary hairstyles and each outfit would look as inspired today as when it first appeared on the catwalk. The only exceptions are several designs inspired by other artists, such as Mondrian. These look dated, tired. YSL’s genius seemed to diminish only when he abandoned his own muse in favor of another’s.

Tom Ford may be remembered for little more than the muffin top—that lip of fat caused by too-tight low-rise jeans. We may have to wait another generation before a designer changes the way women dress as radically as YSL. Until then, we can always look back in time for inspiration. The exhibit runs till April 5, 2009, and shows nowhere else in the U.S.

As the world panics about the solvency of its financial insitutions, I find myself in London, fiddling while Rome burns, off for drinks at Europe’s longest champagne bar. But my thoughts are with California. Let me remind you: we live in one of the world’s most spectacular locales. Yes, your retirement funds may have shrunk like a coked-out supermodel, but that doesn’t mean that you too have to pick up the spoon. To help you find a bit of sanity amid the gloom, here are my top tips for escaping the panic.

• Go to the beach. The single-best way to hit the reset button of a panicked mind is to immerse yourself in nature. I’d suggest San Mateo or West Marin or Point Reyes, but if your car has been repossessed, a mere $1.50 gets you to Ocean Beach via Muni. For avian inspiration, ascend the bluffs of the Marin Headlands to visit Hawk Hill (once noisome Fleet Week finally ends), and watch eagles and red-tail hawks during their seasonal migration to the Bay Area—a sight sure to remind you that there’s more to life than money.

• Learn how to craft at this Sunday’s the next Indie Mart, a street fair of underground artisans, vintage-clothes peddlers, jewelers, ‘zine writers and crafters. Admission is free, and the beer will be cheap. Cultures are remembered for their art, not their financial institutions. If the world is indeed unraveling, now is the ideal time to learn to knit.

• Plant a garden. Nothing is so soul-soothing as digging your hands into the primordial earth. Head to the Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park for inspiration, then peruse the fabulous little bookshop next to the gate to thumb through gardening books. But avoid ornamentals: learn to grow winter vegetables and how to can and preserve, just like your grandmother did during the Great Depression.

• Disappear off-the-grid at Wilbur Hot Springs, which is offering a $75 gas rebate till the end of October. This summer’s wildfires skirted the 1800-acre property, and though the land may appear scorched and dead, nature is in fact regenerating itself—a timely metaphor. No TVs, no cell service, and no Internet mean zero distractions from the pastoral bliss.

• Liquidate your frequent-flyer miles. If you have a secure job, under $250k in the bank, and aren’t approaching retirement, your money is theoretically safe (though it seems US banks aren’t as sound as those in Namibia—as in Africa. Huh?). Believe it or not, the dollar is rising against European currencies. Now is a fabulous time to cross the Atlantic. Come join me at the bar for a glass of bubbly. I couldn’t think of a better time for a bit of British irony.