The Fan Fun with Damian Lewis Holiday Gift Giving Guide 2017 Edition!

Holiday greetings to you all!  I am thrilled to return, once again, for an updated version of our annual gift giving guide. If you have a Damian Lewis fan in your life, this post is for YOU!

I am a burlesque performer, who specializes in holiday-themed acts.  Being known as the “Queen of Christmas”, I love merging my two worlds and bringing my love of the holiday season AND my love of all things Damian into one fun post.  It’s also a nice creative break for me, since I have been costuming and act developing for this season since August.  I’m putting down the tinsel and picking up the keyboard! Here are some of our tried and true favorites, and some new picks-enjoy!

Television and Films available on DVD:

The first stop on our list has to be the several wonderful choices in DVD releases that you could choose.

You can find both older and newer releases at most major online retailers like Amazon.com. They have everything from the big screen down to the small!  You could go for this beautiful Band of Brothers DVD Collection, or a small release film like The Silent Storm.  With DVDs, you can span almost the entire spectrum of his career, watching Damian grow from a talented young man playing the heroic Dick Winters, all the way to a mature, seasoned and experienced actor portraying the overbearing and abusive Balor McNeil.  It’s the best kind of “time travel”, in my opinion!

All sorts of excellent collections of TV seasons are also available, such as seasons 1-4 of the show that got this whole blog rolling, Homeland, to our most recent obsession,  Billions!  You can even relive our lively summer from last year with Charlie Crews if you’d pick up Seasons 1 and 2 of Life on DVD!

Last year I was all about Wolf Hall, released by PBS, which is still a great choice. But this year I want to shine a spotlight on Forsyte Saga, which I have made a priority to watch in the coming year.  I am looking forward to seeing how Damian can make the Victorian era tolerable for me.  I am not a huge fan of that time, by any means. I’m more of a flapper, myself. 🙂

Books:

If you loved Band of Brothers and Wolf Hall, maybe you’d love to take a deeper dive into the books that inspired these great shows? A quick stroll through your local bookseller, or a bigger chain like Barnes and Noble, and you can find the novels of both stories!  Both “Wolf Hall” and “Bring up the bodies.”  If you are anything like me, you’ve probably been excited to consume all I could find out about the history of Henry, Thomas, Anne and the time they ruled during.  I love the way that fandom can light a fire within, and suddenly you are on this quest to educate yourself and gain new knowledge.  I have Damian to thank for my new found appreciation of some pretty iconic parts of English history!

Speaking of our Damian fandom, we cannot have a section on books without including “Meeting Damian Lewis”, a fun little bit of life-meets-fan-fiction that we featured previously on the blog.  Thank you, Christine Wilson! I think of you as an honorary member of the sisterhood 🙂

And speaking of Damian Lewis more as the man, and less as the characters he embodies, you wouldn’t want to pass over picking up “The Love Book“, then jumping over to your mobile app store and picking up the matching app, and reading along as Damian, as well as wife Helen and several other familiar British voices read lovely poetry to you.  There is a poem for every feeling on the spectrum, from the grief of loss to the elation of new-found love, to the hilarity and comfort found only in the beautiful middle ground of stable, well-settled love.  I will admit to playing some of these in my car as I commute home after a long day!

And one more, if I can quickly. This one is a bit of a reach, but with our leading fella being a redhead, you might enjoy reading up on the fun facts surrounding life as a redhead.  I spotted this fun book on Amazon called “The Big Redhead Book”, which promises the following: “Whether you are a redhead, know a redhead, or are just an enthusiast, this book explores the realities, the myths, and where red hair actually originates (it’s not Ireland). Author Erin La Rosa not only delivers the facts, statistics, and undeniable realities of being a ginger, but she also weaves in her own personal and hilarious stories about being red. Being a redhead is not just a hair color, it’s a lifestyle―and this book is your own exclusive peek into that fabulous world.” 

Officially Licensed Show Merchandise:

This is the part where I, as an artist, have to pull out my soapbox.  Please, please, please, as we partake in our fandom and enjoy our shows, do what you can to support official, licensed show merchandise.  These shows are created by hard working actors, writers, directors and crew, so respect their intellectual property.  In supporting the “real deal”, you in turn support them.  There, now we can get on to the goodies!! 😀

Showtime, of course, has a great supply of both Billions and Homeland merchandise.  Everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs to board games can be found!  I couldn’t resist ordering the “F*** you money” piggy bank.  Maybe I can start my own hedge fund! Or you could pick up the item we have all threatened to buy for one another as a joke – I am referring to, of course, the Bobby Axelrod cardboard standee. I am also digging the “What would wags do?” shirt.  I mean, obviously, it will remind you to ask yourself that, and then do the OPPOSITE, right?

When digging through the Homeland merchandise, you have to do a bit of a deep dive to find our beloved ginger, but he is still there!  I have always adored the design of this promotional poster, with Carrie’s post it notes actually creating Brody’s face on her wall.  Below, you can see our founding blogger sporting the design, proudly, on a t-shirt!

I also adore this newer t-shirt design, featuring our beloved and heroic Brody, as well as this set of jazz-album inspired lithographs. 

So that’s the list for this year, folks!  I hope you can find all the fun gifts for yourself or the Damian fan in your life. And don’t forget-all year long, you can find an assortment of our favorite items under the shop section on Damian-lewis.com!  What are your favorite items? Join us in the comments to chat about what we hope to find under our trees on Christmas morning!

Happy Hollie-days!!

Love, Holliedazzle and the whole Fan Fun with Damian Lewis Crew