The approach to a seasonal spectacle doesn’t get any different than two of my favorite yearly events, Divine Design 2004 and Motorola’s 6th Anniversary Party benefiting Toys for Tots, which for the last few years always seem to end up happening on the same night. Fortunately, I was able to use my Santa-like party-powers and a little creative scheduling to make it to both without missing any of the main action.
Divine Design kicked off the night with a dash of high class, opening the doors of Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar to its annual festive frenzy of shopping for designer goods at discount prices, all to benefit the ever-deserving Project Angel Food, which delivers hot meals to people homebound by AIDS and HIV, as well as a newly added roster of debilitating conditions including cancer and diabetes.
I spied my pal Jaime Pressly rooting through the racks, as well as Ariana Huffington, Traci Bingham, Judith Light, Boston Legal‘s Lake Bell and Las Vegas‘ Marsha Thomason. Everyone seemed to be loaded down with bargain-priced items for their friends and loved ones . Inside the winter-white gala dinner, the evening’s honorees Sean “P.Diddy” Combs–fresh from LAX and, frankly, appearing a bit jet-lagged in his otherwise gracious acceptance speech–Jessica Lange and Nicole Miller took the stage after introductions from the likes of Mary Hart, Ryan Seacrest and Ed Harris.
And then there was Eric McCormack, whose overabundance of holiday spirit almost gave in to a humbug moment. Eric warned the crowd that as the evening’s celebrity auctioneer, he was putting his nice-guy persona aside to harangue the audience for sky-high bids to raise money for Project Angel Food. And he wasn’t kidding: Initially confronted with a Scrooge-like response to some of the ultra-luxury items on the slate, Eric had some choice words for the non-bidders which we won’t print here. But where there’s a Will, there was a way, and Eric eventually untightened the tight-fisted, and the auctioned ended with full coffers for the charity.
The Motorola crowd was rowdier and more of-the-moment as they piled into Hollywood’s Music Box theater, making sure to drop off a brand-new toy with the nattily uniformed Marines standing guard at the entrance: A plethora of Tinseltown’s party-hearty players made the festive cocktail scene of the bash, which has become one Hollywood’s hottest holiday ticket: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Nicolette Sheridan, Nicole Richie, Rose McGowan, Danny Masterson, Shannon Elizabeth, Andy Richter, Bijou Phillips, Eliza Dushku, Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli, Kelly Osbourne, Lance Bass, Heavy D and a pair of dueling Gingers, Nicole Eggert and Rachel Hunter from the wacky reality series The New Gilligan’s Island to spice up the egg nog.
My moment of the evening: grooving to the hip-hop attack of the mightily muscled LL Cool J, shaking my groove thang alongside the pint-sized booty of my pal Samaire Armstrong. And me without my mistletoe!
Can’t get enough party coverage? Here’s more:
Happy Cavallidays!
Our intrepid team of party elves descended on a huge private mansion in nearby Bel-Air to give me the scoop on Flaunt Magazine’s 6th annual holiday party hosted by JUST CAVALLI, the latest young, hip brand from uber-designer Roberto Cavalli.
I Love Paris in the Winter
Paris Hilton was shivering like her tiny pal Tinkerbelle as she braved the frigid red carpet and L.A.’s unseasonably cold December weather to host her own holiday season bash and introduce her brand new Paris Hilton Fragrance, which one images will end up being gifted and re-gifted among hard-partying heiresses everywhere.
Messing and Mullalley’s Mistletoe Moment
“Crack’d Xmas,” the seventh annual holiday fundraiser benefitting the Trevor Project–a free telephone support line designed to provide help and assistance to young gay people who are struggling and often feeling suicidal as they come to terms with their homosexuality-paid tribute to Will & Grace stars Debra Messing and Megan Mullally, and the two comedy queens-no pun intended-did not fail to raise to the same-sex spirit of the occasion.
Rodeo Aglow: Lighting Up 90210
For 19 years the annual Beverly Hills Holiday Lighting Ceremony has illuminated the giant wire “tree” atop the Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel (where Julia Roberts and Richard Gere did buisness in Pretty Woman) at the intersection of chi-chi Rodeo Drive and bustling Wilshire Boulevard.
