In case you didn’t get a chance to ogle tonight’s not-quite-full moon, here she is as seen from my Silver Lake backyard with my point-and-shoot cam pressed up against the eyepiece of my 60x spotting scope (biggable if clicked):

The actual full sphere arrives Monday night, but I snapped its almostness tonight just in case the weather conditions become decidedly less cleartastic.

I know the above portrait of our local raccoon from my Silver Lake frontyard webcam is from last night and not Christmas Eve, but to me it still succeeds in debunking that whole “Not a creature was stirring” argument.

Hope everyone’s Christmas Day was full of merriment.

gift bags for the neighbors all loaded and ready for delivery

Over the course of the last week or so we’ve given you ideas for Holiday giving.  These represented a variety of ways to give to charities and causes near and dear to us.

A list of those ways to give back a little of yourself to L.A.:

• FixNation
• Foothill Unity Center
• Cri-Help Treatment Centers
• Occupy L.A.
• Five Acres 
• The Library
• Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles
• Chihuahua Rescue

Of course it is never too late to chime in with you own ideas for giving back to the community in the comments here.

There are a lot of homeless pets, and rescue organizations who are trying to help them, who can use help around the holidays and year-round. There are many fantastic groups, but one I am familiar with is Chihuahua Rescue, located in Burbank. While they care for mostly Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes, the no-kill, no-turn away volunteer-run shelter takes in other, primarily small, breeds as well. Many people are having to give up their pets due to the state of the economy and the shelters and rescue groups are quite full. Chihuahua Rescue is no different.

Honey, rescued Chihuahua mix

Besides adopting one of the available dogs, there are many other ways to give. You can sponsor a dog, make a one-time monetary donation, give goods and supplies such as food and blankets, or volunteer your time (as I’ve done in the past). Click here to learn more about donating to Chihuahua Rescue.

(Honey is a Chihuahua mix I rescued from an Orange County group last year).

This post is part of the Blogging.LA Holiday Giving series.

I’m going for the obvious here, but I don’t care.

Kids. Sick kids and their families.

Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and Orange County are pretty much tops at what they do. And what they do is help sick kids, not just to feel better, but to feel like they can and will grow into normal, healthy adults, instead of some outcast, freakshow survivor of childhood illness. And that last part is worth a lot.

Go to www.chla.org for more info.

Courtesy sjd52878 via the BloggingLA Flickr pool

This is not the first time I’ve written here about supporting your local library, nor will it be the last.  I say this because this post might sound a little repetitive now, and it really will be a grand day when we all can move on to other things because this problem has been solved, its coffers full.  But it’s unsolved and the treasure chest remains empty and looted, so here, again, is just another two cents about why it is you should care about the continued existence of local institutions that make you smarter with or without you knowing it.  Or, at the very least, keep you entertained.

One of the best gifts I ever received for Christmas was a book.  The Missing Piece, specifically.  I first read at the library when I was a kid, the whole thing, in the children’s section, S aisle.  I checked it out, then again, then again again, so many times that my mom eventually just got it for me for Christmas.  That book made my soul smarter, and I likely wouldn’t have read it otherwise.  Certainly not at the bookstore – partly because we didn’t go to bookstores very often, and partly because I was afraid of new books.  Too new.  Too nice.  We had nice things, but not very often new things.  So, the old, used ones in the library were more approachable.  I read those.  Everyone read those.

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5 acres logo

Five Acres is a child services organization in Altadena that specializes in helping abused kids.  It started in 1888 as an orphanage for Los Angeles County and today has grown to include full service to families where child abuse and neglect is an issue.  They have been creamed with the loss of government and private grants as the economy has tanked yet the kids needs has not changed.  They are in need of financial assistance now more than ever.

I apologize for the late notice but they are in need of help with their “Holidays and Family Angels” program.  They have a deadline of today to help if you can.  What they need is volunteers to adopt a family of 2-10 members and provide them with Holiday gifts.  If you can spare the extra right now this is a great way to bring a little joy to the season for a family.  More information can be had on this program by contacting Danielle Barr at 626-798-6793 ext 2250 or emailing her at dbarr@5acres.org

For more information visit their web. Other contact information on the group: Five Acres – The Boys’ and Girls’ Aid Society of Los Angeles County,760 W Mountain View St.Altadena,CA 91001, (626) 798-6793

Venice, home of the World's smallest Occupy protest

This Christmas, amid all my gift-giving, I’m thinking of the Occupy protesters, who have been out there for up to three months, fighting for the rights of regular folks like you and me. That’s why I’m highlighting the Occupy movement for this Blogging Los Angeles series on holiday giving.

In the Los Angeles area, we have Occupy Los Angeles, one of the largest Occupy protests in the U.S. (Note: the LAPD evicted the Occupy L.A. protesters from their encampment a couple of weeks ago, but, as their website indicates, the protesters are holding many daytime and evening assemblies). Occupy L.A.’s website has a “Donate” section, where they ask for cash or other supplies.

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Serving families in need in the SGV is the Foothill Unity Center.  They are in need of more help than ever due to the ever increasing demands on them as a resource for families in distress.  Over Thanksgiving they served over 2,000 families up from some 1,600 a year ago.  Things aren’t getting better and they need all the help they can get for this Holiday Season.

They have a nifty page on what they need right now to get ready for Christmas.  They need food items.  They need gifts for kids.  They need to have volunteers to help with the distribution.  That is 3 ways to help them out, not including the constant need for cash donations.

If you have someone on your list that has everything, consider making a gift to the Foothill Unity Center in their name this Holiday Season.

For more complete information on the Foothill Unity Center visit their web site.

Monrovia Center: 415 W. Chestnut Ave., Monrovia 91016 Phone: (626) 358-3486 / Fax: (626) 358-8224 Hours: 9:00am – 5:00pm Monday through Friday.

Pasadena Center: 191 N. Oak Ave., Pasadena 91107 Phone: (626) 584-7420 / Fax: (626) 584-7422 Hours: 9:00am – 5:00pm Monday through Friday.

Christmas in full swing in my 'hood

Over the next several days the writers here at Blogging.LA will be sharing with you ideas to help those in need in the Los Angeles Area.  We will cover a variety of ways to help from charities to causes that we hold near to our hearts.  And giving doesn’t have to be monetary, it can be your labors, your gifts in kind even raiding your pantry to help others out.  You don’t have to be religious either, much of what we share will strike a cord at least with your humanist and spiritual side.

Of course, feel free to jump in on the comments with your favorite charity or cause that needs a little extra help this time of year…include links where possible so others can help if they are so inclined.

screen grab with the announcement no Fesitval of Lights

Busy looking for things to do different than the Hastings Ranch or Christmas Tree Lane displays to take the out-of-towners to this year I decided to look for the details on the Festival of Lights.  Imagine my surprise to learn that an infrastructure project has it cancelled for this year. More details on the cancellation HERE.  With Griffith Park out of the picture am on the hunt for something equally grand…ideas anyone?

Marina Boat Channel by day

If you’re an L.A. lover of the life aquatic, you’re in luck: this weekend, we’ve got two boat parades in a row.

First up, on Saturday, December 10, is the Marina Holiday Boat Parade at the Boat Channel in Marina del Rey. The boat parade, where the vessels are decked out in lit holiday splendor, begins at 6 p.m., preceded by a fireworks show at 5:55, which some people may be eager to see after the annual July 4 fireworks display was canceled due to budget cuts. There will be judging in various categories for the boats. See the first link above for all details.

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Its hard to pick out what is “normal”  Hollywood Blvd weirdness vs regular stuff on Halloween.  A few more in costumes and begging to be photographed videoed for free is probably the only difference. Its sort of Halloween Light compared to the insanity that is WeHo but it is subway easy and still festive enough.  His original blog post HERE.

Waiter: Will there be anything else for you this evening? Moon: No thanks. I'm totally full.

Coming in a close second to my deathless obsession with measuring rainfall, is my never-ending crush on the moon, particularly when it hitsa your eye like a bigga pizza pie, such as last night’s full version. So after this morning’s pre-dawn dog walk I situated my 60x spotting scope on the porch (illustrated after the jump), got my point-and-shoot all up in its viewfinder and managed to hold everything steady long enough to land this big fella at 6:31 a.m., juuuust before it got tangled up in the frontyard tree branches and power lines (click to enormify).

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Below a high-summer sun

autumn slinks in

under the green leaves

and waits,

conspiring for the coup

of late September.