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. The last few years have been unpredictable for the world of live performance, but it seems like things are looking up! My schedule is full and my soul is happy.
And as always, here are some of our tried and true gift giving favorites, and some new picks-enjoy!!
Television, Films and Music:
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. Last year we added Dream Horse to the list.
All sorts of excellent collections of TV seasons are also available, such as seasons 1-5 of the show that got this whole blog rolling, Homeland, to our most recent obsession, Billions! Make sure you are ready for a quarantine binge with seasons one, two, three, four and five!
You can even relive our lively summer from a few years back with Charlie Crews if you’d pick up Seasons 1 and 2 of Life on DVD!
source: NBC
In the first guide we published I was all about Wolf Hall, released by PBS, which is still a great choice. And last year I wanted to shine a spotlight on Forsyte Saga, which I promised to watch in 2018 and 2019, and apparently not even a 4 month furlough gave me enough time to fit this into my 2020!! 2021 was no better, and dear reader, you’ll be not-at-all-surprised to find out that the yearly tradition of me not watching The Forsyte Saga continues! It has become it’s own saga in my world. Maybe Mr. Dazzle needs to just buy it for me so I have no excuse??
source: Amazon
His appearance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was brief, but epic, so snag this awesome collectors edition DVD and repeatedly watch the best 5 minutes in the whole film!
For the music lovers in your life, check out this amazing album project Damian lends his talents to, all in tribute to the Queen’s 95th Birthday!
The album, entitled “The Music of Kings and Queens,” tells the story of making England through 12 monarchs, beginning with William the Conqueror and ending with the current Queen.
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! The third volume in the Wolf Hall series is out and Damianista swears by it! We hope that Damian will bring Henry VIII to life once again in the BBC adaptation of “The Mirror and The Light.”
You could also pick up the book “A Spy Among Friends”, which Damian’s next limited series project will be based on! The TV series is slated to release on December 8th, 2022. Hopefully we’ll be adding it to the DVD list next year, as well!
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 🙂
The tall one is notorious for his philanthropy, so grab this adorable children’s book by Sharmila Collins of Cure EB-the charity that Damian is a patron for.
“Binkle can’t wait until he turns from caterpillar to butterfly. He’ll finally have strong, beautiful wings to take him high into the sky! But when the day comes, something is terribly wrong. Why are Binkle’s wings so wispy and weak? How will he ever fly like the other butterflies if his wings are nothing like theirs? Yet with some help and creativity, maybe there’s more than one way to fly . . .”
And of COURSE I’d be a fool to leave out the most EPIC book release in all of Fan Fun history:
Our very own Damianista wrote a whole guide about “eating, drinking and dealmaking in NYC.” How cool is THAT?? SO COOL!
And just for candy cane fun and mistletoe dreams, how about a London Underground map book featuring a caricature of Damian? Great addition for UK travel plans or if you live in the city!
Cartoonist Simon Ellinas has created a book of 272 caricatures of celebrities associated with each Tube stop, detailing their connections to each area. “Next stop: Damian Lewis-Tufnell Park!”
Buy the book from Amazon UK here for £9.52
Buy the book from Amazon US here for $15.03 USD
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 Billions merchandise. Everything from T-shirts to coffee mugs to Christmas sweaters!!
Warning, though, if you buy any of the “sweary” merch…..there’s no censoring in the final product!
I am really loving the Funko Pop figures of various characters! I have both a Bobby and a Taylor.
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
