Aren't you curious who's going on "traditional" holiday dates? A Christmas Carol isn't sexy. Nobody gets laid after The Nutcracker. And who wants to drive through holiday lights together? All of the traffic really impedes the drinking and making out and hand-jays, which are your primary goals.
Don't wait until the crap holiday programming melts away to ask someone out. This is Dallas: For every boring, wholesome surface event you see on Guidelive, there's a dozen freaky things happening underground. That's where we come in.
Let the Observer be your eggnog-spiking wingman with these 10 holiday dates, custom-built for godless hornball weirdos like you.
1. Get Stoned and Visit the George W. Bush Presidential Center. (Attempt to Buy a Christmas Ornament, Get Denied.) Warning: DO NOT go to the Bush Center sober. That's a rookie move, reserved for people in sweater sets and sensible shoes. For this date you'll both show up goofballed out of your minds and dressed crazy. Then you'll awkwardly pay entry from your Coinstar sock.
That's your right as an American.
The crown jewel of this outing isn't the formal presidential splendor, it's locating Dubya's holiday ornament, a true work of craftsmanship selling for the oh, so reasonable price of $29.95.
Since your eyes will be redder than Georgie's cardinal, expect friction from security. Especially when you insist on paying in nickles.
2. Ice Skate, While Re-creating that Scene from Rocky There's a lot of winter junk that we don't have to mess with in North Texas, like snow chains. Mention them in Dallas and people think you're talking about a hot new rapper.
But we still get winter's perks because we're Texans, a defiant breed that builds structures antithetical to both logic and temperature. For that reason, you can go ice skating in shorts here. No problem.
Fort Worth's Coyote Drive-In spent close to 100K for its seasonal rink, so take the Rocky to your Adrian and go recreate that Body/Brains scene. Then, make out in a back seat when you should be watching a movie.
This Chicago-based video blog tours its tripped-out seasonal offering through Dallas on December 18. Go check it out at Texas Theatre, where EIT hosts weave you through the cinematic debris. It's weird, freaky and more fun than Dumpster diving for discarded inflatables. Take your wrong-eyed sweetheart. (Bonus dare: End your night at Tradewinds.)
4. Run from Brain-Eating Elves at Three Local Haunted Houses It isn't the holidays until you sign a liability waiver. Dallas has a dedicated subculture of gore fetishists who would offer haunted attractions for Mother's Day if demand met supply. Three of those haunts open the weekend of December 13 and 14.
Zombie Manor is doing an all-Nutcracker theme, promising delicious decapitation by enraged gingerbread men and sugarplum fairies. It's NightScare Before Christmas at Moxley Manor, which promises all of October's peril, but with more tinsel. Dark Hour Haunted House pledges a "winter theme," that weekend, so brace yourself for whatever that means.
5. Holiday Burlesque
Our local burlesque ladies are super humans. Their hair looks perfect whether effortlessly pinned or allowed to spill down mid-routine. They derobe with a poise and flexibility that would leave you laid up for days with a case of the "pulled-somethin's." And in the winter they still seem to enjoy going down to the tassels. (Meanwhile, you bitch about removing Heavy Coat at bedtime.)
Burlesque is a great winter date because it's seduction coupled with zero work by you. Let those dames get the motors spinning, then sit back and reap the rewards. Five troupes do holiday shows this month. Viva Dallas does Festivus Follies, a sexy show benefiting Home for the Holidays Texas, that's bound to get your dreidel spinning on December 6. There's a Toys for Tots drive at Babes in Toyland on December 13 at the Boiler Room, where you get entry with $5 and a toy donation ($5 minimum on that toy). Once you're in, jollies are provided by drag king Santa, Frankie Klee, with assists by his dedicated legion of naughty elves. The Lollie Bombs will make any Scrooge blush during their two shows at Pocket Sandwich (December 20 and 21). Broads and Panties roasts the oldest chestnut in the holiday sack, with its third annual Nearly Naked Nutcracker at Trees on December 21. And Ruby Revue dazzles in two sequin-studded affairs at House of Blues on December 28.
6. Santa Rampage 2013 If you don't already have someone special, pick out a present for yourself at Santa Rampage. The annual bar crawl happens on December 14, and everyone who goes dons their seasonal best. By "seasonal best," I mean slutty elf suits, racy Santa lingerie and strategically placed garland. Oh, and girls dress up too.
Do shots until you don't care whose lap you sit on.
7. Die Hard Errywhere We can all agree that Die Hard is more than just an amazing holiday movie: It's also the greatest action film ever made in which an off-duty New York cop becomes ensnared in a high-stakes monetary heist, disguised as a grand act of terrorism, housed in a glass-windowed office building on an otherwise calm Christmas Eve in Los Angeles.
Seven different Dallas movie houses are showing the thing this month. Get it sooner at Studio Movie Grill (December 5), mid-month in 35-mm at Texas Theatre (December 13 to 15) and a Christmas Eve screening at Alamo, which comes with in-house pyrotechnics.
8. Explore the Underground Tunnels Unemployed during the holidays? Good. Then you can explore the underground tunnels. They operate from 9 to 5-ish, Monday through Friday, and create a Downtown subterranean web for pedestrians.
They're weird, hated by city planners, and have somehow never been the subject of an art collective takeover project. There's all kinds of stuff down there: coffee shops, frozen yogurt, fast food. Plus, I'm pretty sure moleman Ron Perlman secretly lives behind the Chick-fil-A. Here's a map.
9. Drive around Old East Dallas, South Dallas and Legit West Dallas to Look at Christmas Lights, Because that Shit's the Bomb Don't drive to North Dallas to look at holiday lights. Why gawk over what you can't afford?
Cruise your own neighborhoods: That's where the dopest décor is hiding. Make a jacked-up nativity scavenger hunt and award 1,000 points to whomever finds a snowmen cradling baby Jesus or spots Mary riding off with Santa. Celebrate the one, excited apartment that's buried under garland and lights, surrounded by 11 other far-less-joyful residences. In Dallas, we understand that's the real holiday spirit. Not three million spools of LEDs, installed by a legion of high-end, suburban holiday ninjas.
10. Get Banned from a Bar Together If you've never been banned from a bar, you're really missing out. It's freeing, like pawning all of your possessions during a spontaneous, manic swing. Also, the statute of limitations on "banning" is much quicker than you think. Usually all is forgiven within 30 calendar days.
Get wasted on holiday shots and winter drinks, then make some bad decisions together -- possibly in the bathroom, maybe in the back ally. EITHER WILL WORK. Sure, you can't go back to the Landing for a while, but you're both still welcome at Cosmos, and they've got a fireplace.
