These days, there are certain traditional holiday events I wind up going to multiple times just because I go with different people on different days. Last night, Shobhit and I went to this year's Gingerbread Village at the Sheraton Hotel—the
22nd I have now gone to, at least since 2002, and I have perhaps gone to more since before that; in that time, I only missed 2020 and 2021 due to pandemic cancellations. This year, I intend to take Gina and Beth there tomorrow; and will likely go a third time with Laney in about a month. Similarly, I will go to the Christmas Dive Bar with my work team on December 10 and again with Laney on December 19. I may also take Gina and Beth there tomorrow, but we'll see; it depends what they're up for. The same goes for the Seattle Festival of Trees at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, which I went to with Laney last Tuesday; I returned to with Shobhit last night; and will take Gina and Beth to as well tomorrow.
Last night was the Lighting of the Tree Ceremony, and this year I only had Shobhit to go with. I suppose Alexia might have come with us, as she did last year, but this year she's on a weeklong trip to California with a friend. I didn't bother seeing if any other friends were interested. I knew Shobhit would go with me. And since we were going downtown anyway, Shobhit wanted to leave a little early so we could walk downtown and see this year's Gingerbread Village at the Sheraton Hotel first.
We got in line at 4:15, and were viewing the first of the gingerbread houses at 4:40. So, we were in line 25 minutes. My hope is to take Gina and Beth straight there when they get into town around 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, and that it will be early enough that we'll get right through quickly. In any case, knowing that I would be coming back and likely taking more photos at other visits, so far I have
a photo album with 26 shots for this year's display.
I've been a little disappointed that the display has only featured four gingerbread houses since they returned post-pandemic; back in the day, they had at least five. This year, technically, they had six: the requisite four as part of the official competition of houses you can vote for, and then two "
Student Displays." I felt like that was an acceptable compromise.
We finished with the Gingerbread Village at 4:45, which means we walked through them all in a whopping five minutes. That gave us enough time to walk over to Westlake Center in time for the Lighting of the Tree Ceremony, the program for which started at 5:00, and then the tree was actually lit earlier than it had been last year, by about five minutes: after a countdown. the tree, and the Holiday Star on the old Macy's building, were lit by 5:10.
The key difference between this year and last was that there was no speech by the Mayor. Bruce Harrell lost the election this year, and if he had any class he'd still do events like this while he was still the mayor. Maybe he had some other commitment he couldn't get out of, I don't know—but I cannot easily find any excuse, and to me the optics feel a little petty. It'll be interesting to see how this goes next year, the first holiday season in which Katie Wilson is Mayor. A year in, we should have at least some sense of what kind of mayor she is. Right now it's kind of up in the air.
Santa Claus didn't make an appearance this year, either—although Buddy the Elf, from
Elf the Musical, did, alongside
the Seattle Mariners' Humpy the Salmon. Both of those appearances were new. The very-not-new appearance was that of the Supremes-like vocal group
The Jewel Tones.
Once the tree was actually lit, the program was very same-y: the tree itself is the exact same one we've had for
at least seven years now. I'd love to see them mix it up soon. And the star is the same as the past several years, and the fireworks display, which I always enjoy, is also the same. If I didn't love Christmas so much
and I didn't live so close, I'd stop bothering. It kind of feels like this event was originally designed for Black Friday shoppers already Downtown anyway. And guess what? With so many deals easily accessible online and so many fewer stores Downtown, it's just not what it used to be. I suppose I should be fair and note that the event itself is
still plenty crowded.
And: Shobhit and I still did some Black Friday shopping yesterday. We just did it at University Village, not Downtown. We went to the Fireworks store there in search of
the thick booties Karen was wearing on Thursday for Thanksgiving, and that's where she told us she got them. Shobhit thought they would be a perfect gift for his mother. They had only one pair left, though, and Shobhit didn't like the color. He did find a fleece jacket for her at Eddie Bauer, though. And that was actually on sale, while Fireworks, we learned, doesn't do any sales.
We also went to the Levi's Store, where they were selling everything 40% off for Black Friday. I was unsure about buying jeans just for that reason, but in the end, boy am I glad I did: I did laundry yesterday too, and when I put away the lights, I noticed my white jeans already have a hole in the crotch! Good thing I ordered a new pair of white jeans at the store. They had none in stock, but I still got the deal having them order online for me, and they will be shipped right to the condo. I also bought a pair of lighter bluejeans, kind of stone washed, than I usually get. Shobhit insisted I try them on, and I was super annoyed with his insistence on this, and then I kind of liked them when I saw them on. They were more expensive than Shobhit thought they were—a good $20 more than the white jeans—but I bought them anyway. Serves him right! I'll spend an extra twenty bucks! That'll show him! I didn't budget for either of these jeans, though, so I took the cost out of my general travel budget line item. I'm thinking about adding a new budget line item just for potential Black Friday shopping, so I can avoid having to do it this way again.
Anyway, I backtracked a bit there. I haven't finished about last night. After the Lighting of the Tree Celebration was over, roughly a quarter after 5, we walked over to the Fairmont Olympic Hotel so Shobhit could see the Seattle Festival of Trees. We stopped at the PCC office first, so he could use the bathroom and so I could see if anyone had left me this year's PCC Holiday Gift Card (I still haven't gotten it—even though we were all sent an email the week before last that we'd be getting it "this week").
With no one else dwelling on the trees and being only with Shobhit for this visit, we zipped right through those trees. We were done there by about 5:35. I think this might be one of the things Gina and Beth enjoy the most, and I'm sure we'll spend plenty of time there when I see it with them tomorrow. I only took two new photos there last night, one of the exterior of the hotel and one wide shot of the lobby; that took my
Seattle Festival of Trees 2025 album up to 78 shots. I'm sure I'll take more tomorrow too though.
I've had so much shit going on, I still haven't even had time to put up the Christmas Tree. I did bring up the boxes of Christmas decorations from the parking garage basement storage unit this evening, but have only gotten so far as taking the tree out of the box. In the meantime, the big time sucker today was going to see
Hamnet with Laney, which was excellent with sone quibbles. Laney and I went to see it at the AMC Alderwood Mall, because it's not yet playing at any closer AMC. We took Light Rail from Capitol Hill Station to Lynnwood City Center Station, then a "Swift" Rapid Ride Orange line bus from there to the mall—it's just the next stop on that bus's route. We had to wait 14 minutes for the bus to arrive, so it arrived at our scheduled showtime, but we knew trailers would still be playing by the time we got there, and we were right.
Shobhit was out for a walk getting his steps in when I got home, and I set about writing my review. Then, after he got home and prepared dinner, we watched the first two episodes of season three of
Squid Game on Netflix. Even factoring that in, I might have gotten much more of the Christmas decorations out, except tonight was Fourth Saturday at CC's, which meant—Naked Night!
So, we went to the bar and we got naked. It was okay. There's something lovely and freeing about nudist spaces. But, we got there at 9:00, which is somewhat early for this event, and we were only there about an hour. We might have witnessed, or maybe even participated in, some of the same kind of wild stuff we saw (and participated in) at the last Saturday Naked Night we went to, but that likely would have necessitated staying longer. We did see Cavin again, but this time only waved in passing. We also danced a little bit, which made this the second time I have danced naked on a crowded dance floor. That was kind of fun.
I also got pretty drunk at the last Saturday Naked Night. I didn't bother with that this time, and we each just had one Tequila Sunrise, in addition to one shot each of tequila before we left home. The best part of Naked Night, really, is just the eye candy. The body types really run the gamut, but there's also a
lot of super hot, naked men to admire. That's essentially what I did for an hour. And then Shobhit and I walked over to Carmelo's Tacos and shared a mushroom quesadilla, before walking the rest of the way home.
I won't have a lot of time for updating my blog in the morning, and so it seemed critical that I catch up on Friday and Saturday now, or else I'd have all that
and that day with Gina and Beth to write about later. I do feel pretty rested, at least: after the terrible night's sleep I had Thursday night thanks to Sanjay's delicious but highly caffeinated chai, I went to sleep last night at about 11:30—and was stunned to wake up this morning at 8:45. That did mean, though, that there wasn't a ton of time after I got ready, before I was headed out to meet Laney at the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station at 11:45.
There was a Huskies game, and we barely missed a train when I first arrived because it was so full of people. The next one was full too but we managed to get on it. Most of the people purged at University of Washington Station. But then, on our way home from the movie, by that time the game was over. When we pulled into University of Washington Station southbound, I actually said rather loudly, "Jesus Christ!" when I saw the mass of people waiting on the platform. It was a bit of a challenge getting out of the train at Capitol Hill Station, but we made it.
And now, I've made it with my latest blog post! It's five till midnight as I write this. I need to go to bed!
[posted 11:57pm]
