A City of Light

My dorm room decorated for Christmas

 San Francisco cleans up nicely for the holidays. The entire city is decked out in the equivalent of a bedazzled, spinning, ever unfolding new dress. Each city corner offers its own kind of twinkle. It seems the city has already popped open its champagne bottle—sweet, sweet, alluring energy eagerly pours out. So I set out to renew my Christmas spirit, San Francisco style.

View of Union Square

 Two days, two Christmas epicenters. The first place I ventured was to the good old Fisherman’s Wharf. Yes, it is touristy and commercialized. Yes, I stepped into the Forrest Gump shoes outside of the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant like everyone else. But Fisherman’s Wharf from a local’s perspective includes walking along the pier by the boats preparing for the light parade. It includes a huge tree that glimmers way in the distance, accompanied up close by the ever present jazz musicians. Even the little tourist shops add an extra Christmas flavor to the small keepsakes propped in windows. There’s something about the addition of little red ribbons and candy canes that colors up one's cheeks and one’s heart.

On this particular occasion we walked through the main square, standing by the outside fire of a restaurant when none of the employees inside were watching. We bought cookie cakes and I watched as drama struck the scene. It began to rain, but San Francisco rain is the equivalent of a nice spray bottle spritz on a summer’s day. Not that San Franciscans would know the difference between that light tickle and the force of a hurricane. Lights streamed through the rain as people laughed and ducked into the small awnings of the little corners Fisherman’s Wharf had to offer.  My friends and I? We took advantage of the open square, laughing at our youthful resilience.

 Day two, Union Square. It began with my drama. My inability with directions led my friends and me into the heart of the Mission, one of San Francisco’s scarier neighborhoods, under the false promise of a free carriage ride we never were able to find. With Christmas my inner sense of cheesiness and desire for the fairy tale touch rises to the surface. But while I was not rewarded by a carriage, I found the equivalent of my castle at the end of the lurching ride.

My roommate and me

Union Square is Christmas at its glory. Another tree, and another ice skating rink, but somehow they are different than their stereotypical appearance on the television screen.  Union Square is surrounded by the shiny new glow of stores and the gentle towering of the oldest, fanciest hotels in the city. The experience feels like something new and something passed down through the ages. It is enigmatic and enticing in a way no other part of the city is. The Macy’s beacons like a plump, welcoming hostess, blushing with the golden glow of wreaths placed in every window. 

So we ice skated, and in a grand display of the movie moment no one wants, of course I fell. We sampled the Ghiradelli peppermint bark and danced in and out of the crowds with shopping bags in tow. I had the strangely pleasant feeling of being on my way to someplace, all the while sensing I had already arrived. Yet the true mark of Christmas is its elusive touch, leading one in every which direction without rhyme or reason. At Christmas one is more trusting, more willing to follow. Perhaps because everywhere there is a kind of happiness to be found, as plentiful as the Christmas trees spotted in windows.

Cheesy? Most definitely. Am I a tourist in my own city? Perhaps. But in San Francisco I found places that glow as much as I do at this time of the year. I found people who share the same expression of awe at the twinkling lights that somehow add up to sheer beauty. Each caroler in the Fisherman’s Wharf rain, each Union Square skater and shopper, each college student seeing the city for the first time, is an ornament adorning a stunning city. It keeps growing brighter and brighter.