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Oh my god, the festive holiday events just don't stop coming!
For many years now, I have organized
yearly collections of photo albums for the Christmas season, which include individual photo albums for all the festive events around the holiday, as well as the photo album for Christmas itself. For many years, they would average, like 7 to 9 albums each.
In both 2019 and 2020, the number went up to 10 albums. In 2021, it went up to 13. And then last year, 2022, it exploded:
twenty photo albums for the Christmas season. It wasn't just a little much in terms of the number of photos I was taking, but for the actual events I was going to. I was kind of like: I need to slow my roll here. Fewer Christmas events in 2023, I swore! I even told myself: I can still do a lot, I just don't need to do
that many.
Well, it's only December 5 so far, and all I can say is: so much for that! I literally already have 10 albums either done or in progress so far, with 18 ultimately likely to occur by the end of the month. And we haven't even established whether we'll do a holiday event this year for the Merchandising Department, which is on the agenda for discussion in our all-team meeting tomorrow. If that happens, and I suspect something will indeed happen for that, the number will go up to 19. Still fewer than last year's 20, I guess? Success!
And: I've had
quite the streak of holiday events the past
four days in a row—to such a degree that, rather than writing one blog post on Monday to cover the entire weekend as usual, I've needed to post separately about each day. On Saturday I posted about
The Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition at Pike Place Market on Friday night, which I went to with Shobhit and Alexia. On Sunday I posted about the
Argosy Christmas Ship Festival cruise on Saturday night, which I had scheduled and booked with Alexia, who had to bow out for very understandable reasons and so Shobhit went with me instead—and actually seemed to have a good time. Yesterday I posted about
Snowflake Lane in Bellevue, which had not been the destination but which Gabriel, Garret, Andy, Brian and I happened to find ourselves in the middle of at the end of dinner. I couldn't
not take pictures! Who the hell do you think I am?
What happened last night was kind of similar to Snowflake Lane, where I wound up at
Seattle Center Winterfest by coincidence. I've actually taken so many photos of
Winterfest over the years, and so much of it is the same every year, I often make an effort
not to go to it. Now, I've gone to it every year since 2017, with the exception of 2020 when public events just weren't happening.
I would have skipped it last year, except I worked it into the day I spent with Tracy on Holiday Lights & Delights, and I discovered she had never seen Winterfest. Of course I had to remedy that. Last night, Shobhit happened to be attending a Theater Puget Sound holiday party on the 4th floor of Seattle Center, and suggested I just walk over there so he could drive us both home. I could have walked home as normal, but it was rainy yesterday (as it is today) and I figured, fuck it, I'll get a ride. It was still a brief, 15-minute walk over to Seattle Center from work anyway.
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As it happens, there is a key difference with Seattle Center Winterfest this year: the inclusion of the
Seattle Christmas Market, a ticketed, timed-entry market clearly meant to be a big holiday event draw, which costs twenty bucks just to get in.
I actually very briefly considered buying a ticket—it's a new, kind of high-profile, holiday event, after all. Then I looked up the event
on Yelp, and . . . holy shit. The reviews are so bad, I actually laughed out loud: 18 reviews so far, an average rating of 1.7 out of 5 stars.
Damn. A choice review:
Way too expensive for admission to a tiny little fair. Long lines with timed entry and separate ticket and entrance lines. Having been to much better (and free to enter) Christmas markets in Chicago and New York, I'm sorry Seattle, but this ain't it. Kinda ruined all our Christmas cheer today.
Okay, so I wouldn't be going to the Seattle Christmas Market.
Instead, I first went into the Armory, where I took the requisite photos of the model "Winter Train & Village," which always has some charming variations on its details. I took more shots of it than I expected (12).
Then, I did go outside, just to see what I could see of the Christmas Market, which is fenced in around the area in front of Fisher Pavilion—the reason the Diwali Festival did not expand over there like Dia De Muertos Festival had, as by then the Christmas Market was being set up. I managed to get a few shots sneaking views through spaces in the fencing, including the giant Christmas Tree of lights in the middle of the space. I got about four shots that way.
The thing that struck me most, though, and actually disappointed me, was that the animated LED lights on the trees at Seattle Center from the past few years—
check it out from last year—were all gone, back to the stationery, white Christmas lights on the trees surrounding the park. What the hell, Seattle Center? The only explanation I can think of is that they wanted to shift the focus to the Christmas Market. We never had to pay twenty bucks just to get into Seattle Center, though. This shift is a genuine bummer, and I find myself wondering whether they'll be bothering with the drone show, that debuted last year, again for New Year's Eve at the Space Needle this year. I guess we'll see.
I spent a good half hour wandering around taking photos, and in the end got
an album of 27 shots—only two fewer than I got last year. I then took the elevator up to the 4th floor and met up with Shobhit, where I discovered Ry, who is largely involved in local arts and was one of the other candidates running for City Council in the primary, was there. He immediately got up and gave me a hug, which was sweet.
Shobhit had parked several blocks away on Mercer, and we walked to his car and he drove us home. We heated up our dinner, and then we sat down to watch the new Todd Haynes movie on Netflix,
May December, which I was eager to watch and review—I did not see it in a theater only because, as seems to have become common with streamers' theatrical releases, it was only playing at The Crest up in Shoreline. Whatever, I can deal. And I
loved the movie, which I then went to the bedroom to review.
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[posted 12:36 pm]
