Is there a pilgrimage you make around the holidays?...for me, it's always been a trip to San Francisco...a tradition that began when I was a young girl...
There were four of us who would travel together...my Mom and her best friend Dean...and me and Dean's daughter Betty, my best friend when I was growing up...my Mom would always drive because she knew the City well, having made a gazillion trips to the hospital for my Dad's many doctors' visits...and, besides, just the idea of driving in the City scared Dean...
Every year about three weeks before Christmas, we would pile in our car and make that drive...and every year we would visit Fisherman's Wharf and Union Square...and each of the big department stores...Macy's...City of Paris...I. Magnin...The White House...
I have so many fond memories of these trips...because in those days...when the City of Paris was still open...located in that magnificent Beaux-Arts building later demolished to the dismay of many...there was nothing like the Christmas tree that graced its five-story rotunda...and its toy department took up the entire top floor...where they always had a roaming Santa Claus to entertain the kids...for a six-year old, it was like dying and going to heaven...
I remember one year Dean was unimpressed with the Santa they had hired...he was a little thin...somewhat scraggly...and not very keen on making contact with the kids...in retrospect, years later, I came to realize she thought he was probably drinking on the job...
So she waited until he was standing still...and quietly walked up behind him...making sure he had no idea she was there...and then belted out...in her loudest, lowest, male-like voice (yes, even louder than mine)...pretending she was him..."Ho...Ho...Ho...Merry Christmas"...
She let it out slowly...with immense control...enunciating each vowel in each word...in a booming voice...it reverberated throughout the entire store...and that Santa was taken completely by surprise...I bet he never did that job again ever...
And the real reason we went to San Francisco was to visit one place in particular...Podesta Baldocchi...a floral shop that was always the highlight of the trip...every holiday, Podesta's became a magical destination...filled with trees on both sides of the narrow store...at eye level so you could really appreciate their decoration and ornamentation...and also so that baskets of the many ornaments that adored their limbs could be placed at arm's reach...ready to be purchased...
Such unique and beautiful ornaments...from all over the world...that you couldn't find anywhere else...magnificently decorated trees...each one different...each one beautiful...
Betty and I would make the rounds...gazing at each tree again and again...finally choosing a special ornament...a new one for that year...an ornament that would hang...with all the others...on our trees at home...over the years, it became a ritual to choose one...and then rush home to uncover all those from previous years...anew...every holiday...
This tradition lasted well into our twenties...and my Mom still has every ornament we ever bought together...each one dated with the year it was purchased...each one lovingly wrapped in the original packing material...each one tucked away until the few days every year that its magnificence is allowed to unfold...get displayed...be shared...and remembered...
