The best holiday gift is personal

Young Chang

Local artists and shoppers agree that a personal touch is what makes

the best holiday gift.

That touch is exactly what Corona del Mar artist Marilyn Ellis, who

recently displayed her paintings at the Newport Beach Central Library, is

looking for in gift-giving.

She has made cards from some of her visual mono prints, an art form in

which the painter works on a sheet of plexiglass on an engraving press

that is then used to create one print.

The abstract designs, pasted onto more than 100 cards to be sent

overseas to family members and friends, are colorful and intimate.

When it comes to the best holiday gift she could receive, Ellis, 68,

has a simple answer: good health.

She suffered a slight stroke last month and was in the hospital for

six days.

“The fact that I am not paralyzed and that I can walk three miles,

that’s my greatest gift,” Ellis said. “It’s really life and death; that’s

what you think about.”

When asked about her all-time best holiday gift, Salwa Rizkalla,

director of “The Nutcracker” ballet being performed by the Festival

Ballet Theatre at Orange Coast College this weekend, recalls two that

touched her emotionally.

A few years ago, dancers at her studio pitched in and bought her a

small statue of a dancer. They carved “thank you” on it and then her

name. Rizkalla said she values it to this day and appreciates the thought

behind it.

The other gift was a 4-foot-by-3-foot piece of needlework with

countless “Nutcracker” figures embroidered onto it with different fabrics

and sequins by her dancers.

“A lot of people got involved in it,” Rizkalla said. “They all made it

together and it took teamwork.”

Arthur Taussig, the creator of a Web site focusing on films and family

values and the moderator of a film noir series at the Orange County

Museum of Art, once received a wind-up Samurai toy from his

brother-in-law.

Taussig collects them--he has about 2,000 to 3,000 wind-up toys at

home--and he remembers this gift because it showed that a family member

really knew him.

“That’s just quirky me,” he said. “It’s [my brother-in-law’s] secret.

He has a secret source of these very strange wind-up toys, and he won’t

tell me where he gets them.”

Local shoppers also are buying at unexpected locales.

At Temple Bat Yahm’s annual bazaar this week in Newport Beach, amid a

sea of beaded jewelry, decorative candles, pillows, hand-crafted

trinkets, custom-quilted photo albums and other few-of-a-kind finds,

temple visitors avoided the bustle of the holiday mall crowd.

But Julia Kayton, a congregation member, had a more religious reason

for being there.

“I found some Hanukkah stuff for my house and for my family in

Florida,” she said. “The items in the malls are more geared toward

Christmas.”

Michelle Lieberman, a visitor to the bazaar with a basket slung on one

arm and a baby cuddled in the other, scoured the booths for creative

crafts that kids would enjoy.

“I’m just looking for something small to appreciate the holidays,” she

said.