Christmas in San Francisco

View from Point Reyes National Seashore

Katrin and I had the great pleasure of spending Christmas in San Francisco this year -- the first time either of us had been away from home and from the usual traditions.

One of the perks of my constant travel is that I can use frequent flyer miles and hotel points for our vacations, so we enjoyed stretching out in the first class cabin on the Delta flight to San Francisco and took in the view of the city from our room at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.

On our first night in San Francisco, Anna arranged for us to go to Berkeley for dinner at Venus and to see "Arabian Nights" at the Berkeley Rep. What an absolutely enthralling play! With minimal staging -- only about $100,000 worth of Persian rugs and beautiful Arabic costumes -- the Rep created a completely captivating world and drew us in.


Photo of Berkeley Rep’s 2008 production courtesy of kevinberne.com

On Christmas Eve we did some Christmas shopping at Gump's, then went to Grace Cathedral for the Festival of Lessons and Carols, a sublime and moving service celebrating what the Dean of the Cathedral, Jane Shaw, calls "our outrageous but firm belief that God yearns to be part of our lives and world." In her welcome statement in the bulletin, Dean Shaw went on to say, "We believe that this really has happened in the person of Jesus Christ and continues to happen in us." Amen.

After the service, we strolled across Nob Hill to the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel for the Christmas Eve buffet dinner at the Top of the Mark. Suffice it to say we left no delicious morsel untasted!

On Christmas Day, we rode the cable cars to Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf. Naturally, we chose to hang onto the open cable cars on the day when it poured down rain!

One of the seafood restaurants on the wharf, Cioppino's, was actually open on Christmas, so with Anna we enjoyed their namesake dish and a Dungeness crab pizza (most excellent!).

The next day, Anna planned an outing for us to Point Reyes National Seashore. In addition to the breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, we also literally lost our breath climbing the 303 steps down to the Point Reyes Lighthouse -- and back up again!

The girls were brave to try Drake's Bay oysters on our way from Point Reyes to Petaluma, and I got to practice my oyster shucking skills.

We also visited Larson Family Vineyards near Petaluma, enjoying a taste of their excellent wines (and bringing home four bottles to enjoy later!).


"We Miss You Already," says the sign as we leave Larson Family Vineyards.

On Tuesday, our last day in San Francisco, we met Anna for breakfast, then toured the Legion of Honor's newest exhibit, "Japanesque." It was not only a marvelous look at the making of familiar Japanese prints like Hokusai's Cresting Wave from his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, but the exhibit also traced the influence of that Japanese visual style on French artists of the Impressionist period. From Henri Riviere's Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower to Toulouse-Lautrec's posters, we saw what the French called "Japonisme" shaping their art.



Left: Hiroshige, Gion Shrine in the Snow (Gionsha setchu), from the series Famous Places in Kyoto (Kyoto meisho no uchi), ca. 1833–1834. Right: Henri Riviere, La Tour en construction, vue de Trocadero, pl. 3 from the book Les Trente-Six Vues de la Tour Eiffel, 1902. Color lithograph © 2010 ARS, New York / ADAGP, Paris



After a last look at the Golden Gate Bridge, we headed to the airport. The long flight to Minneapolis and the short hop to Appleton went smoothly, and we're now back at home reflecting on our blessings (and planning our next trip back to San Francisco!).