Lala's Little Nugget

What if you could relive Christmas every day? The vivid memories of joyous times with friends and family. Or, alternately, the smoldering train wrecks made so acutely painful precisely because they occurred over the holidays. Choose your own flashback at Lala's Little Nugget, Austin's preeminent Christmas-themed bar.

I've been to a few of these over the years. Nashville has a great one. So does Philly. But this is a good one too, a proper place to drop acid and do gymnastics in the bathroom. Frances Lala opened her bar in 1972 and became a local celeb of sorts. She sold the bar in 2015 to FBR Management, who added a patio but kept the place mostly intact. Lala passed away in 2017 at the age of 86. The bar still throws an annual birthday bash for her on March 8.

Christmas forever. The concept is simple enough. Is it a happy place, or a display of Kafkaesque artifice? Make your own decision. And perhaps ponder this excerpt from a classic Christmas movie: ‘Eyes Wide Shut’.

ALICE: Maybe, I think, we should be grateful … grateful that we've managed to survive through all of our adventures, whether they were real or only a dream.

BILL: Are you ... are you sure of that?

ALICE: Only as sure as I am that the reality of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime, can ever be the whole truth.

BILL: And no dream is ever just a dream.

ALICE: The important thing is we're awake now and hopefully for a long time to come.

BILL: Forever.

ALICE: Forever?

BILL: Forever.

ALICE: Let's not use that word, it frightens me.