Ten picks for an L.A.-style holiday

Hard times, bad moods, gnarly voters – some years just cry out for a dose of California mellow, for an “only-in-L.A.” kind of holiday.

So how about a “Hollywood Bowl” to hold your La Brea Bakery granola? Or maybe a beach towel that will, er, knock ‘em dead at Venice Beach next summer? Or a zen-like little slice of West Coast art in your stocking, inviting you to dispel your toxins with beauty and purity?

We took an online stroll through a half-dozen or so of Los Angeles County’s public gift shops as the wrapping paper officially starts flying. Then, just for good measure, added a handful of other cool local museum stores. Turns out they’re not only a way to support L.A.s great civic institutions, but also an invaluable source for California-style holiday dreamers.  Here are some of our favorites:

1. We felt cleansed just looking at this “Pure Beauty” soap from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art gift shop. Inspired by West Coast conceptual artist John Baldessari , it’s scented with ginger and lavender.

2. How cute are the La Brea Tar Pits? Pretty cute this season. The Los Angeles County Natural History Museum is celebrating its resident celebrity, the sabre-toothed cat, with plush Smilodon Cuddlekin, for kids and other holiday snugglers.

 3. Randy Newman loves L.A. so much he wrote a song about it, which you can hear all this month in “Randy Newman’s Harps and Angels,” the great new show at the Mark Taper Forum. Gift cards for The Center Theatre Group – that’s the Ahmanson, Taper and Kirk Douglas Theatres for you non-Angelenos – are available online, with free gift wrap! We love it!

4. The L.A. Phil won’t be back at the Hollywood Bowl for a few months, but you can fill this cool bowl as often as you want, and even put it in the oven or the microwave.

5. Killer beach towels are always in season, and where better to look than the Los Angeles County Coroner’s gift shop, Skeletons in the Closet? Their chalk-outline beach towels are generous-sized and a perennial favorite, but the store restocks every few weeks, so if they’re out of stock, keep checking.

6. The gift shop at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden in Arcadia doesn’t have much in the way of online shopping, but if you buy a membership as a gift for yourself or a loved one, you get discounts there and at nurseries all over Southern California. Poinsettias have never been prettier!

7. This pomegranate menorah evokes not only the holiday season, but also a fruit that is one of the winter hallmarks of L.A. Find it at the Museum of Tolerance Gift Shop.

8. Before she was an artist with shows at the Getty and a faculty gig at CalArts,  Jo Ann Callis was just another ‘60s housewife trying to get through the holidays in suburban L.A. We couldn’t resist these porcelain dessert plates from The Getty Museum Store, bearing her signature images of subverted domesticity.

9. Nothing says Christmas in California like bright colors and extreme takes on religion. R. Crumb, a Golden Stater for much of his career, brings it home with his illustrated “Book of Genesis”, available at the Hammer Museum Store.

10. Ed Ruscha , the quintessential L.A. artist, summed up the quintessential L.A. attitude when he created this art object for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s 30^th anniversary. Talk about a New Year’s resolution.

Posted 12/1/10