Christmas is always festive and what better place to experience it than in San Francisco. Well, not the first choice compared to New York or Chicago, but when in the bay, you don't want to hang out with the homeless near St James Park in San Jose celebrating Christmas in the Park.

Better instead to head up the bay to the queen city of San Francisco, which has way more on offer. A new solution to homelessness in the age of AI, anyone? Twinkling lights on the Bay Bridge that you realize are cars trying to pass through the gridlock, paying tolls to Newsom's bottomless coffers automatically without question. Or the sleepy Golden Gate Bridge that is most of the time covered with Karl the Fog. The best is skating on the makeshift Safeway rink on Union Square which has a skating area where hoardes of humans circle the ring as many times as they can within the hour, there is a viewing area where helicopter parents keep watch, eager tourists who missed reserving the tickets look on as if they are peering into an exhibit of chimps putting on a magical show. It is all here in San Fran.

Getting more serious, we headed up there to spend Christmas Eve braving deadly winds, fierce rain, and some disastrous food at an Indo Chinese restaurant for the joy of tasting 1/3rds scoop of an exquisite Ghiradelli sea-salt delicacy called Ocean Beach. Ah... that was all worth it. Seriously, not being sarcastic. Then a stroll down the rainy San Francisco Embarcadero with views of the Alcatraz at night, its lighthouse beams being scattered by the rain. Then a no Santa, crowd-shared christmas tree in Union square, enroute to which we came marching through the watchful eyes and trained guns of SFPD, dodging threats by the parking guy that he'd shut us out of our car by sharply 3 minutes BC (before christmas) was born.

White Christmas, cuddled under the blanket, trying to sleep off early to be able to get your hands on the wrapped presents sounds like a perfect cup of mashmallow doused in chocolate milk when you are a kid, when you grow up, the tastes do change quite a bit, whether due to diabetes or just refined taste over the years of classy experiences down several cafes.

This was all in all, a very memorable Christmas, even if not the most immaculately planned.

Christmas is always festive and what better place to experience it than in San Francisco. Well, not the first choice compared to New York or Chicago, but when in the bay, you don't want to hang out with the homeless near St James Park in San Jose celebrating Christmas in the Park.

Better instead to head up the bay to the queen city of San Francisco, which has way more on offer. A new solution to homelessness in the age of AI, anyone? Twinkling lights on the Bay Bridge that you realize are cars trying to pass through the gridlock, paying tolls to Newsom's bottomless coffers automatically without question. Or the sleepy Golden Gate Bridge that is most of the time covered with Karl the Fog. The best is skating on the makeshift Safeway rink on Union Square which has a skating area where hoardes of humans circle the ring as many times as they can within the hour, there is a viewing area where helicopter parents keep watch, eager tourists who missed reserving the tickets look on as if they are peering into an exhibit of chimps putting on a magical show. It is all here in San Fran.

Getting more serious, we headed up there to spend Christmas Eve braving deadly winds, fierce rain, and some disastrous food at an Indo Chinese restaurant for the joy of tasting 1/3rds scoop of an exquisite Ghiradelli sea-salt delicacy called Ocean Beach. Ah... that was all worth it. Seriously, not being sarcastic. Then a stroll down the rainy San Francisco Embarcadero with views of the Alcatraz at night, its lighthouse beams being scattered by the rain. Then a no Santa, crowd-shared christmas tree in Union square, enroute to which we came marching through the watchful eyes and trained guns of SFPD, dodging threats by the parking guy that he'd shut us out of our car by sharply 3 minutes BC (before christmas) was born.

White Christmas, cuddled under the blanket, trying to sleep off early to be able to get your hands on the wrapped presents sounds like a perfect cup of mashmallow doused in chocolate milk when you are a kid, when you grow up, the tastes do change quite a bit, whether due to diabetes or just refined taste over the years of classy experiences down several cafes.

This was all in all, a very memorable Christmas, even if not the most immaculately planned.