Las Vegas Classy

I spent about a week on a blog entry about our latest weekend getaway to San Diego. It was flawless... and it completely disappeared. There is nothing worse (blog related that is) than having to rewrite yourself. It never comes out the same the second time. So, it is going on the back burner. Let's skip forward to Thanksgiving.

I talked Brad, Courtney and Kylie into heading down, shopped and cooked for about a week straight, talked some friends out of their planned trip to the buffet into joining us (seriously, it took more effort than you would think...) and totally nailed a fantastic meal.

Highlights: Perfectly fresh out of the oven Charla rolls (mother in law recipe)

Seven... yes seven different pies

Our first brined turkey. Yum

Leftovers that literally fed my family for a week

And now back to the true reason for this post. On Friday, I hopped on my computer to see if there were any free show tickets available on my free locals site. And what happens to appear but a very promising show called "Santa's Magical Circus." This is the first family themed show I have seen ever on this site and there were several tickets available. What luck! I scored seven free tickets for the whole crew and we planned our evening around the event.

Looking back, there were several warning signs that should have made it clear what I had just gotten us into.

Top three things I should have noticed:

1- I should have looked more closely at the poster. At first glance, all I really noticed was Santa.

It is only now that I notice Santa's Circus seems to only include a fluffy dog, a rabbit and a mostly nude woman.

2 - It was free and there were A LOT of tickets available.... never a good sign

3 - In my mind, the show advertised as "fun for the whole family" when instead the catch phrase was "something for everyone." Most definitely not the same thing.

So here is how this goes. We take our seats in a small little theater above the V Theater in Planet Hollywood. It is quaint but we are still pretty excited. To start the show, a bunny suddenly appeared on the side of the stage. It made its way up a pile of boxes to a microphone where it then stood on its back legs and started "talking" into the microphone. It was quite adorable.

By far, really BY FAR the best animal trick in the whole show.

After that, an exceptionally large Santa came out to greet us, explaining that he was taking a break from the north pole to create his own Las Vegas show. He then introduced us to his elf, a not very friendly looking little person, and his two lovely ladies, Holly and Jolly. And that was the only Christmas-y moment of the evening. The only one. At Santa's Magical Circus.

And the acts continued from there. One of the first to greet us was an animal act. He had several fluffy puppies that could bark on command, climb into a basket when asked and stand still while wearing silly costumes. That was about it.

And really, what could make a lame animal act better than adding inappropriate humor in a family show? His best material came out with his parrot. First was the joke about the STD "Chirpies", the joke he claimed got him kicked off television for 15 years. Awkward...

But really nothing beats the joke about who between the two of them, them being the parrot and himself, had the bigger 'pecker.' The audience was silent, obviously because we didn't get it. So he clarified. The parrot definitely has the bigger pecker. Still silence. And since we all just seemed a little dim he clarified for us one more time. "Because I don't have a big pecker."

Seriously.

The next act was a comedian who, though not all that funny, was not that bad. His main act was performing his Guinness book of world records stunt, balancing 40 cigar boxes on his chin. An impressive feat, no question. Though I did find it strange when he clarified, "We have wrapped the cigar boxes like presents so we aren't encouraging smoking to the children."

Yeah, no better way to discourage smoking than wrapping them in pretty shiny paper.

Holly and Jolly were actually very cute girls and performed some decent "person disappears in a box" magic tricks. And their costumes were much more covering than the poster would have suggested. But I guess I just don't understand why, at Santa's Magical Family Themed Circus, their dance moves needed to include shimmies and stripper dips down the side of their magical boxes. I guess that was the "something for everyone" part? Classy.

The true winner of the evening is when this "woman" graced the stage.

Let me introduce you to Tiny Bubbles. Tiny Bubbles is an extremely overweight transvestite. Not really sure where she got her stage name. Cause her bubbles were not tiny and insanely visible in her plunging black velvet evening gown.

Wait, your family themed Christmas show did not have a busty cross dresser? Weird...

The true winner of the evening was Tiny Bubble's second appearance on stage. This time she left the evening gown behind and donned her version of this classic Cher costume

Picture this costume, now add 300 pounds.

That mental image not enough for you? Now let's bring back out our little person elf, this time donning a Sonny get up.

Not from our show but this is in fact Tiny Bubbles with a little person who looks much more interested in participating in the act than ours did.

Through their rendition of "I Got You Babe", Cher would frequently knock her small sidekick over with her oversized behind, quite the gag. But on her last "oops I didn't see you there" knock, she put a little too much force behind it. I am not exactly sure what happened but I think Sonny's hip must have been dislocated in the jolt. The man could not get off stage because he couldn't walk. He would take a few steps and tumble back to the stage. There was nothing to do but watch as this poor small man inched his way off the stage, cussing most of the way out.

You probably think I am making this stuff up. Nope!

The only semi-impressive act of the evening was the puppeteer. His first act actually had the audience laughing and I was pretty amused. But now, as I think about it, it was an interesting choice for family viewing. His puppet was named Rigor Mortis, the oldest stripper in the world. The puppet was actually a skeleton with pasties and panty bottoms. When the pasties started doing 360's as the skeleton shook its hips, well it just really rounded out the evening beautifully.

At the end of the show, the cast came out to take their bows. It took me until this moment to realize Tiny Bubbles was playing Santa. Hey, it was a lot to take in. They informed us Santa was going to be available for pictures in the lobby. I then wondered, do I really want my children sitting on the lap of a Santa who recently bared her cleavage and even less savory body parts just minutes before?

I have never been more proud of my kids for still being terrified of Santa. We gave Santa a wave and headed out. Not fast enough to avoid the producer asking us what we thought of the show.

"Great!" I bare faced lied as I scooted my children out of there as quickly as possible.

We all laughed ourselves to tears in the lobby recounting all we had seen. I fear that if we were to move, my kids will find normal Christmas shows lacking, "Yeah it was okay, but it really could have used a cross dresser."

I am ruining them.