Christmas in San Francisco

One last Christmas post to finish the year...

The week before Christmas the girls were on Winter break from school, so we decided to take advantage of their free time and get into the Christmas spirit by heading into the city to visit a few of our favorite festive places. 

Our first destination of the day was the Fairmont Hotel and the giant gingerbread house. To get there we caught the cable car up California Street. We don't take the cable car all that often, but when we do we almost always take the California Street line. It's just as fun as taking the more popular Powell Street lines, but without the huge lines of tourists. We always get an outside seat (or inside if we want) and the views up and down California Street are pretty amazing. That's one hell of a steep street! I always feel like the California Street line is almost like a local secret! It's definitely not as well known with tourists and, even better, the conductor usually doesn't charge up when he sees me holding out our Clipper cards to pay fare. Shh... 

Gingerbread House & Sugar Castle

Last Sunday we spent the day in the city taking in the sights of Christmas. I always love how festive San Francisco feels at this time of year. The city is filled with Christmas cheer with festive street lighting, Christmas trees, ice skating rinks, ornate decorations in windows and lobbies, and crowds of holiday shoppers and tourists.

We made sure to visit all of our favorite holiday spots: the giant gingerbread house at the Fairmont Hotel, the sugar castle at the Westin St Francis, Union Square and, of course, Santa at Santaland in Macy's.

Here's a look at the giant gingerbread house and the sugar castle...

Gingerbread House & Sugar Tree

Last weekend I took the girls into the city to visit two of San Francisco's finest hotels and their festive Christmas displays: the Giant Gingerbread House at the Fairmont Hotel and the Sugar Tree at the Westin St Francis Hotel.

Visiting these two amazing confectionery pieces makes up two of the vouchers on our advent calendar and it has become a tradition for us to visit them every year.

Sugar Castle 2013

A Christmas activity that appears in our advent calendar every year is visiting the sugar castle at the Westin St Francis Hotel in San Francisco. After visiting Santa at Macy's last Friday we braved the rain and wind to make a detour on the way home and stop by the hotel for a look at the castle.

Each year in December the Westin St Francis on Union Square displays a beautifully made castle crafted entirely of sugar in their main lobby. Each year the castle is added to or modified slightly from the previous year. The fairy tale castle is always surrounded by a picture perfect little village and a (not made of sugar!) model train that chuffs its way around  and around. The castle itself also revolves so that all sides can be seen from any one spot.

The lobby of the Westin is rather dark which makes for a dramatic setting for the castle. The fact that it was a very gloomy night outside made it even more atmospheric, although a little hard to photograph without a tripod.

Ava and Lola watch the train go around the base of the castle

Sugar Castle

Another day on the advent calendar, another giant confection creation to visit...

This time the advent voucher entitled Ava and Lola to visit the giant Sugar Castle at the Westin Hotel on Union Square.

This castle is made entirely of icing. It is surrounded by a little village of sugar cottages and sugar trees  with two trains (not made of sugar!) puffing around the outside. The castle itself is on a rotating base so that all sides can be seen from any point in the hotel lobby.

The castle, while impressive in design and the sheer amount of work and skill that has gone into it, is quite dark and didn't hold Ava or Lola's attention for long. What did get their attention however was the brightly lit Christmas tree in the corner of the lobby. Both girls were much more interested in looking at the flashing lights on the tree.

I guess this one was just a little grown up for my girls to appreciate fully.

The Sugar Castle and Sugar Village