I went downtown three times yesterday. The first time, midmorning, was quite brief: I took the bus, both down Pine and back up (partially on Pike upon return, as these streets are one-way downtown). I went looking for Black Friday deals, at Shobhit's suggestion, at Old Navy. He made the seemingly reasonable suggestion that I might find a new pair of fingerless gloves there, as the ones I was wearing and have had for several years are getting rather threadbare.
I got off the bus, and was surprised to find I could not locate Old Navy. Did I forget where it was? So, I searched for it on Maps. The locations for both downtown and Northgate came up. but both of these also came up with the subheader: "Permanently closed." What? When did this happen?
I Googled "when did downtown Seattle Old Navy close," and came upon
this Reddit post with a user video showing a truck driving away from the old Old Navy store with its OLD NAVY sign, so that was fun. This was posted January 3, 2023, so very close to two years ago. You can see how well I pay attention around here.
So I thought: where else around here might there be a Black Friday deal on fingerless gloves? I tried Nordstrom Rack. There are some men's gloves in there, but no fingerless ones. Thus, I just walked over to Pike to hop on a bus right back home, with a bus thankfully coming by within minutes of my getting to the stop. I decided I'll just see if I can find a Cyber Monday deal for fingerless gloves at Amazon. Yeah yeah, Amazon is evil, blah blah blah. I already demonstrated that I
would have shopped at Old Navy had the store still been open. Of course, their price are so low because of exploited workers abroad so you know what? We just can't win! Merry Christmas!
My second trip downtown was via walking, this time with Laney. We thought we were going to see
September 5 yesterday, but this movie is yet another victim of local limited release schedules, so apparently it's not actually coming out in Seattle until December 13. There was nothing else worth seeing yesterday, so we just scrapped the movie plan altogether. What we did
not scrap was going to the
Teddy Bear Suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel—the same hotel where I had already gone with Shobhit and Alexia, and later with Danielle, to see the Seattle Festival of Trees. But, the Festival of Trees launches the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and the Teddy Bear Suites's first day is the day after. Laney and I were going to swing over there before the movie, and now we were just going dowtown for that alone.
I got
23 shots out of it—technically just 20; three other shots were just taken either in the hotel lobby or a city shot from a couple of blocks away—a record number, actually, out of
the four times I have gone to this since 2018. I went by myself in 2018; with Laney in 2019; and then with Shobhit and Shivy on New Year's Eve in 2022. I'm pretty sure it was canceled due to covid in both 2020 and 2021, so it had been three years since I'd last gone in 2022. But by last year, my annual Christmas events were getting so out of hand in number that I thought it find to skip the Teddy Bear Suite last year. Laney asked if I wanted to go this year, though, and I said sure.
In past years, I have gone much later, in December. I think I shall make a note this year, though, how much better it is to go much earlier in the season. Going early afternoon on the very first day the Teddy Bear Suite is open is especially ideal, and I've been taking the entire week off for Thanksgiving the past three years (counting this year) anyway . Laney and I were there literally three hours after it opened on its first day, getting there at about 1:15. There was one employee standing there guiding people to the direction of the hotel room the Fairmont converts for this, and one couple was leaving just as we got there. We left after about ten minutes, most of which we spent in there by ourselves, which made picture taking
much easier.
Plus, the color scheme was much different this year, so it felt less "samey." I'll be fine skipping this again next year but might go see it again in 2026.
When we were done there, Laney suggested we get hot chocolate, and she suggested we go to the bar that's in the middle of the Fairmont's beautiful lobby. We did not realize they were not quite yet even open when a young man came walking up to us, pushing a supply cart of some kind. Laney asked if they sell hot chocolate, and there was some confusion at first, as he seemed to think we wanted a mocha. Laney knew full well that I wanted nothing with coffee in it, however. It finally became clear, after the guy finally made us our "hot chocolates," that all he did was heat and foam chocolate milk. We were like: okay, that's fine.
"Can we pay separately?" I asked, and the guy said since they weren't open yet it was on the house.
"Oh, wow," Laney said. "You're like Santa Claus!" Then she quipped, "You're cuter than Santa Claus, though."
"I hope so," he said, as we thanked him and found a lobby lounge couch with a coffee table to sit at. And you know what? The heated and foamed chocolate milk actually wasn't half bad. Especially for the price!
I walked with Laney up Pike to Broadway where she broke off to go to her apartment, and I walked the rest of the way home. Shobhit was back from his early work shift but had left to walk to QFC and get his usual lottery tickets. In the meantime, instead of launching right into processing my Teddy Bear Suite photos, I actually vacuumed, so I could get most of that done before Shobhit got back. The primary impetus for vacuuming—aside from it having been weeks since I last did it so it was sorely needed—was Shobhit's friend Ellen and her husband coming over for dinner tonight, which means Shobhit has been prepping and cooking for that exponentially more than he did with any food for Thanksgiving. But, also, Alexia had already texted me that she was bringing Shobhit and me some pumpkin pie because "I made too much," and I figured I might as well vacuum before she came into the condo as well.
Alexia was scheduled to arrive at 4:00, but she arrived seven minutes early, at 3:53. Shobhit and I were still engaged with stuff in the kitchen, Shobhit finishing up cooking one of his countless meals, and me washing dishes. Alexia brought us each a slice of homemade pumpkin pie, along with homemade whipped cream, each in their own two-compartment container, the whipped cream in the smaller of the compartments. She told us to keep the containers, so now we have yet more food containers at home. I quite like these and their compartments, though.
Anyway. Soon enough, the three of us were walking downtown, to view the Lighting of the Tree Celebration at Westlake Park. I think Shobhit would have opted to wait a little longer to walk down, as we had about half an hour to wait once we got to the Christmas Tree. But, I preferred the way we did it, as it allowed us comfortably to get there, find an ideal viewing spot, and let the crowd thicken around us.
I would say the ceremony this year—which I had not attended in two years, as we were flying home from LAX after our visit in Palm Springs the day after Thanksgiving last year—was . . . fine. The program was fairly simple, actually: a ten-minute performance of "The Jewel Tones," a Supremes cover group, followed by a speech by Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, who closed by counting down to the tree lighting.
His speech was pretty emphatic about Seattle's resilience in the face of the expected horrors of the wake of this year's election and looking forward to the coming year. I kind of wish I'd started recording it earlier than I did, but what I got, ending with the tree lighting and subsequent fireworks, still basically conveys the gist.
The Downtown Seattle Association is still calling the season's events "Holiday Lights and Delights," even though, as I discovered last night, there were no light sculptures in Westlake Park this year, the way there had been every year between 2020 and 2023—four years of it. I see no logic in them not bringing the light displays back this year; they were the best thing about downtown holiday events in recent years, especially without the Holiday Carousel we had at Westake Park every year prior to 2020. I'd feel a bit better about the change if they brought the Holiday Carousel back, but they have not.
What they did have was a couple of smaller
photo op displays, which were kind of cute but not worth waiting in line for, and a truly poor substitute for the holiday light displays
or the Holiday Carousel. So, I was pretty disappointed by that.
The whole event was over in less than hal an hour, The mayor had said some things about Seattle "bouncing back," clearly referencing how many people abandoned downtown in the wake of the pandemic. But if they really want to bring in and retain holiday shoppers, they should have better holiday attractions through the season, not to mention better programs that encourage shops to keep open stores in the downtown neighborhood.
We had walked through Westlake Park to see if there was anything interesting that replaced the holiday light displays (not really), and since we were closer to Pike Street, we walked back up the hill on that street. But then, since we were passing right by, Shobhti suggested we check out the Gingerbread Village at the Sheraton Hotel. I had hoped to wait to see that with Laney during one of my days off shortly before Christmas, but, oh well: Alexia was interested, and I had no good reason to protest. When Laney and I go, it will be a weekday afternoon when we'll get in almost immediately. The line was surprisingly short when we got into the hotel lobby last night, although we were surprised to discover the line formed into switchbacks right inside the first hallway entrance. It still wasn't too bad, though; we probably waited in line for about half an hour.
This year's theme, though: "Iconing Destinations," is spectacular—so I won't have any problem returning to view them again. The four displays are of famous cities around the world: London and Paris (of course); Agra, India with a gingerbread Taj Mahal; and most delightful for me, Sydney, Australia—I took a bunch of photos to later post to Mary Ann's Facebook page. The display of famous skyscrapers in London, though—complete with a
Mary Poppins next to The Shard—was my favorite. I really, really loved the displays this year, and it's easily my favorite since 2017, that year being similar but focused exclusively on Seattle.
After that, the three of us walked back up the hill on Pike Street, and Alexia walked further on to her car once we reached our building. Shobhit and I did a bit more prep after that but also watched about four episodes of the latest season of
Heartstopper on Netflix. I was amazed to witness the costume party scene, where Tao happens upon
the exact same lamp, of a flying saucer beaming up a cow, that Gabriel and Lea have in their basement bathroom. I had to take a photo of it and text it to them; apparently Gabriel did not notice when he watched the season. (Not a huge surprise; I would not expect him to be glued to the screen when a show like that is on.)
So that brings us to now! We had a lot going on yesterday, and we're doing a lot of prep for Ellen and her husband coming for dinner today. Still, I managed to get the living room Christmas decorations up late this morning and early this afternoon. I'd prefer to share a photo from after dark. but I want to get this posted, so for now you just get this shot I took of the living room this afternoon.
Shobhit asked me how long I've had this tree. I first used it in 2014, which makes this my
eleventh holiday season using it.
[posted 2:28 pm]
