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Page A-26 Shelton-Mason County Journal Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020
Lights: ‘Keeping Spirits Bright’ encourages safe festivities
continued from page A—25
to restore the community’s status as
Christmastown, USA earned them en-
try into the Guinness Book of World
Records.
Last December, Shelton took on
the Hallmark Channel. Known as the
“Christmas Tree Capital of the World,”
Shelton and Mason County celebrat-
ed this distinction with a bid for the
Guinness World Record for “Most Lit
Christmas Trees” in one location.
The previous record of 559 trees
was set by Hallmark in 2015, but Shel-
ton beat that Dec. 7, 2019, with 797
trees arranged in a lighted maze
When and
that families could explore, along with
Santa visits, hot chocolate, apple ci-
der, food, caroling, gingerbread house
contests, live music, gift workshops
and vendors at the “12 Days of Christ-
mas.” Organizers distributed the trees
throughout the community and money
was presented to the Kristmas Town
Kiwanis for the “Food for Tots” Food
Drive and the “Toys for Tots” program.
“Everyone is anticipating another
festive holiday season,” said McCutch-
eon, who described event organizers as
content to let Shelton’s Christmastown,
USA record from last year stand, espe-
cially since they’d only be challenging
themselves for the title. “People want
our small-town traditions to continue,
and our phones have been ringing with
residents asking us to decorate the
town, to conjure up a bit of cheer.”
McCutcheon touted the “Keeping
Spirits Bright” promotion as encour-
aging Christmas festivities via safe
avenues because the event is in com-
pliance with the latest state guidelines
and restrictions.
“We’ve been working hand in hand
with Mason County Public Health on
this one, but the only thing that could
be more perfectly suited to social dis-
tancing than our tree maze is driving
around to check out all the displays of
Christmas lights around the county,”
McCutcheon said. “Especially at the
end of a year that’s made us feel so
isolated and disconnected from each
other, a festive event like this can offer
some fun relief.”
The custom Google map of contest
participants’ addresses was released
Dec. 1 and will be updated frequently.
McCutcheon credited Rachel Han-
sen with providing not only “creative
ideas,” but also a driving force of “en-
ergy and willpower” to help make this
event happen, and she encouraged
people to visit christmastownwa.org
for local activities, shopping inspira-
tions and the history of Christmas-
town, USA.
where toen joy tasty treats in 'Christmastown, USA’
39km; Boxleilnerr ,
kbox/eitner@masoncounty com
Rachel Hansen, coordinator for Explore Hood Ca-
nal & South Puget Sound, offered Shelton-Mason
County Journal readers the inside scoop on a couple of
the‘ local Christmastown, USA, highlights, which are
listed at christmastownwa.org.
The “Holiday Dining Wagon,” designed to ‘ sup—
port local restaurants, will hit the decorated streets
of downtown Shelton at 5, 6 and 7 p.m. during the
next three Fridays and Saturdays before Christmas.
The wagon will provide onboard meals and Christmas
light tours for groups of up to five for $100 per group.
Fridays at 5 and 6 p.m. will showcase the cuisine of
The Strip, while 7 p.m. will treat guests to the cooking
of Smoking Mo’s.
Saturdays at 5 p.m. will see the return of Smoking
Mo’s selections to the wagon, while 6 p.m. will feature
the meals of El Sarape, with the 7 p.m. dining option
to be determined.
This Sunday, Xinh Dwelley will serve up Christ-
mas seafood dinners at 5, 6 and 7 p.m., complete with
crab cakes, tahini salads, sauteed clams and lemon
tarts, for five guests for $150.
For more information, or to reserve your seat, go to
christmastownwa.org/wagon-rides.
And the second annual Gingerbread Challenge
runs from Monday through Dec. 11, during which con-
testants can deliver their gingerbread house entries to
the Shelton-Mason County Chamber of Commerce at
215 W. Railroad Ave. in Shelton, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
on those days. . -
Entrants are encouraged to use designs inspired by
either traditional holiday motifs or Christmastown,
USA, in particular, and are not required to be houses.
Each entry’s major components, from walls to roof,
must be constructed of gingerbread, while the rest of
the display can be decorated with any edible material, .
but all visible components of the display must be ed-
ible, even though the internal support structure does
not need to be edible —- as long as it’s not visible from
any angle.
The bases should likewise be Eoncealed with ed-
ible products, except for the side edges, which can be
trimmed with ribbons or other material.
Write your name, address and the name of your
structure on the underside of your base.
All entrants should expect their entries to remain
on display through Dec. 21, and any entries not picked
up by 5 p.m. that day may be discarded.
IN THE DARK REVIEWS
‘The Game’ offers a hard-knock lesson to Michael Douglas
0, let’s say you’ve just
S finished celebrating
Thanksgiving in full,
festive fashion, but you might
feel like you need a bit of a
breather before you launch
right into nearly- a month—long
campaign of holly-jolly sea-
sonal sentiments, leading up
to Christmas and New Year’s. By
At the same time, you still
want a film in keeping with
some of the prevailing mes-
sages of the winter holidays —— be
grateful for how much you have, in-
cluding your loved ones, and believe
that how you treat others matters,
even the folks you don’t know -— al-
beit perhaps delivered more sternly
than the customary treacle.
This is why you shouldn’t sleep on
David Fincher, because before he won
Academy Awards with 2010’s “The
mam
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Social Network” and 2011’s
“The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo,” or scored box office
hits with 2008’s “The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button” and
2014’s “Gone Girl,” Fincher
was the dark, nervy film-
maker who liked to play tricks
on his audiences with mind
games like 1995’s “SE7 EN”
One of Fincher’s most over-
looked films is 1997’s “The
Game,” which is nuts, because it not
only features a dynamite lineup of ac-
tors —— from famous name-brands like
Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, to
solid supporting performers like Deb-
. orah Kara Unger and Armin Mueller-
Stahl but it’s also all about a rich
and powerful businessman receiving a
long-overdue scared—straight attitude
adjustment, in much the same vein
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as Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas
Carol.”
When N icholas Van Orton (Doug-
las) was a child, he saw his father
commit suicide on his 48th birthday.
As Nicholas approaches his own 48th
birthday, his successes as an invest-
ment banker do nothing to dissuade
us from suspecting he might be head-
ed toward the same end, since he’s
already estranged himself from his
ex-wife, now remarried and pregnant
with the child she never had with
N icholas,'and his admittedly sketchy
younger brother Conrad (Penn).
Nicholas’ rigidly ordered and lonely
existence is initially knocked off—kilter
by the unexpected return of his puck-
ish kid brother “Connie,” Whose latest
scheme seems to involve a company
called Consumer Recreation Services,
which offers participation in a cryp-
tic, immersive game to wealthy elites
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such as Nicholas.
The fun of watching “The Game”
unfold is seeing how far the game it-
self will go within Nicholas’ life, as his
irritation at the game’s interference
with all the tidy conveniences he’s'set
up in his day-to-day routine gives way
to being excited in spite of himself, ‘
over the sense of adventure provided
by the game’s scenarios, before his
previous skepticism of the game
winds up being validated by the far
more malicious havoc that it begins to
play with his career and his sanity.
Watching Michael Douglas as Nico-
las Van Orton, whose cautiously me-
thodical rationality quickly gives way
to an entirely justified, all-consuming
paranoia, is like watching the alter-
nate history of a Bruce Wayne who
never became Batman; all the ingredi-
see-REVIEW, page As};