Traveling for Christmas: Bay Area
Before I embarked on my 2014-2015 trip to the UK, my brother, who was moving the family to the West Coast for his new job, invited my parents and myself to come celebrate Christmas 2015 in California. We all agreed and I left the farewell party with my bags to fly off to London. Since the family was going to travel for next Christmas, I started to plan for it as soon as we made the decision.
I love Christmas and I love wrapping gifts. I have rolls and rolls of wrapping paper that I have collected through the years and I have ribbons, gift tags, bows and trappings to present the gifts in a decorative manner. I get excited to find wrapping paper, ribbon and bows for sale after Christmas in patterns that I think look classic. I don't always buy new paper each time since a have about four viable rolls of paper, but when I see something that screams me, I do get it.
However traveling for the holiday wreaks havoc with wrapped gifts, so I thought ahead. It seems that every travel expert suggests not to travel with your gifts already wrapped. Therefore the first thing I did when I settled into London was hit an M&S to raid the clearance Christmas gift supplies. Gift bags, wrapping paper, crackers and holiday baubles were all discounted. I picked up some very stylish Christmas gift bags for 3 for £1, some matching tissue paper for £1 and a few treats as well. £6 later, I had everything I needed for presenting all my gifts next year.
Months passed and I had been looking for flights to San Francisco and Oakland. The rates were outrageous even early on; I was pricing round trips at $600 or more. Eventually mid-September, I found two reasonable one way tickets to the West Coast and bought my ticket out on United ($174.60) and my return on American ($203.10). I finally picked my dates, I was traveling from December 22 to 25 and I confirmed that everyone was OK with my red-eyeing home.
Now on to my hotel rooms. I needed to complete a mattress run - the act of paying for a night in a hotel to earn points or credits or to maintain status - to maintain my gold status with Starwood. When I was finalizing my Christmas trip in September, I was two individual stays shy of the ten for the year. I booked the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf Hotel at my corporate account rate ($133.63 with tax) and the Westin St. Francis San Francisco on Union Square at the SPG points and cash rate, which Starwood counts toward your total number of stays. Additionally, I promised my mom, primarily, that I would book Christmas Eve in the same hotel as my parents, the Hampton Inn and Suites Oakland Airport – Alameda, to help make logistics simpler and I pre-paid for the room to get the best rate ($214.48 with tax).
In the meantime, I made arrangements for a work trip with a wacky itinerary to maximum my time without blowing my work budget. Due to the 5:30 am flight on a Saturday, I spent a night at a Philadelphia airport Starwood hotel the night before to ensure I made it to the airport on time. Therefore, I earned another night, bringing down my total to one night away from gold status.
On Thanksgiving night, the Hotel Triton started appearing as a featured link on my Facebook feed with offers of a Black Friday sale with rates starting at $89.00 plus tax ($110.16 with tax). I had stayed at the Hotel before in July 2013 and enjoyed it. With the pressure off of me for two nights in Starwood hotels in San Francisco, I canceled the more expensive of the two Starwood rooms and registered at the Triton.
My flights and rooms were set, then it was time to think gifts. First, I suggested to my parents to wait until the Epiphany to exchange our gifts, since we would all be back home in Philadelphia by then and it’s also another traditional Christmastide day for presents. There is no reason to pack gifts to send or take to the West Coast only to exchange them and then pack the new gifts to return home. Now onto the children. I partially spoil my nephew and niece; for both their birthdays and for Christmas, I get them three gifts: a toy, some clothing and a book. I planned to go shopping at Target (in the Metreon) or Old Navy (at 4th and Market) for clothes and I could visit a Barnes & Noble in town for their books. The toys were the fly in the ointment. I headed to the kids’ wish list that my sister-in-law maintains for them on Amazon and remembered that I could take advantage of the Amazon Locker.
Amazon Locker is a self-service parcel delivery service offered by Amazon.com. Customers can select a Locker location as their delivery address in lieu of their residence. Retrieval is simple, go to the Locker location and provide the unique pick-up code and voilà the Locker opens with your parcel. This service was started to combat concerns of stolen packages and for customers missing the mail delivery. I used it to combat sending gifts too early or too late to one of the three hotels that I would be stay at for the Holiday. Also my brother and sister-in-law were taking the kids to Disneyland the week before our visit; I didn't want to worry about making all those arrangements to deliver my gifts to them since they might not be home when my packages arrived. The service is available about 10 areas in the US, so it might not be a total lifesaver just yet, but for me the service is in Philadelphia and the Bay Area. Now that I was sending toys to Amazon Lockers, I was set for traveling light and without needing to check any luggage.
Now to the morning of December 22nd, I made it to the airport without a hitch. I landed at 9:00 am and rushed into the Mission to have the Nebulous Potato Thing at the St Francis Fountain. By the time I got to restaurant, its was 10:00 am PST (1:00 pm EST). I hadn’t eaten anything after 6:00 am EST since United didn’t sell any food on the early morning flight out. I was headachy and hangry. The dish was good and I downed about three glasses of diet Coke before heading off to my hotel.
I created this trip to San Francisco like a scavenger hunt. I had three different hotel stays. I had errands on both sides of the bay. I had dates with three good friends. I had Amazon packages to pick up.
I settled in my room by noon, local time, and I had plans to meet a good friend in Berkeley for lunch. We caught up at Platano and enjoyed some papusas. While there I would stop by Chez Panisse for a gift certificate for my brother and sister-in-law. This was their first full year in the Bay Area and I got them a Lowes gift card for last Christmas. This year, I wanted to give them an opportunity to explore the area and visit Berkeley.
That night I had dinner plans with another good friend, Karen, and before catching the bus to go to the restaurant, Stones Throw, in Russian Hall, I picked up one of my Amazon Locker packages. I retrieved the gift, hopped on the 45 and serendipitously run into her on the bus. One big kink in my plans occurred when she told me over dinner, which was excellent, that night that there were no Barnes & Nobles in the city. They all closed a few years back. I had to go back to East Bay for the closest B&N.
I got up early that morning and picked up the other package at an Amazon Locker and headed over to El Cerrito to El Cerriot Plaza. I joked that you can take the boy out of South Jersey, but I'm always going to find a mall. In 30 minutes, I finished up my shopping and stopped at Lucky for assorted snacks and nibbles. I returned to the Triton, checked out and headed to the Sheraton.
In Fisherman's Wharf by the hotel, I found a Ross: Dress for Less where I picked up the final Christmas gifts, a Safeway where I become acquainted with a delicious Russian River wine to bring on my third friend date and to Christmas dinner and Trader Joe's where I bought a treat for my friends' son.
I made it out to the Outer Sunset to see my friends before they left for there Christmas trip to Mexico. We had a wonderful time catching up and watching their son open up some of his presents from family members before the big day! I took an über back and I treated myself to a drink before calling it a night.
Christmas Eve morning, I gathered all my belongings, gifts and booze and make the trek to BART via the F Market and Wharves. There's something about the F line that resonates with me and connects me to my father. Streetcar lines and rail transportation are my father's interest and hobbies. Obviously with my love of travel, my father and I share this quirky interest. In fact, so many of my relatives have an interest in some form of transportation that we explain it away as part of the "Ryan gene." Therefore during a post-college trip to San Francisco, when I was open to the suggestion of finding a Christmas gift for my dad, I subscribed him to the Market Street Railway newsletter and he's been a member since.
I spent the afternoon playing with my nephew and niece. I got a tour of the house from the older one. The three of us fought light saber fights and my niece stole some mad moves from Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and sliced my feet from underneath me at the ankles. My nephew showed me his "second largest crayon" in the world. The younger one and I painted with glitter glue. "Uncle Casey, I like yours the best," she exclaimed at my opus, "You have technique." We went to the children's nativity mass and ate a creole inspired rice dish that my brother calls, "Market Rice."
Being nearly 3,000 miles from home didn't seem really that far when you're together with family. My parents got to tuck the kids into bed. I helped my sister-in-law wrap presents from Santa. My brother served us some egg nog and we enjoyed the silence before the Christmas excitement. Before we headed back to our hotel, I asked if we could go drive through Christmas Tree Lane, 3200 block of Thompson Avenue, in Alameda. It reminded me of our drives through South Philly.
We settled in our hotel and I prepared my gifts for the next day. Then I nestled into my bed and quickly passed out. My alarm woke me up and I joined my parents for breakfast. I was surprised how full the hotel was. We arrived at my brother's and Christmas had exploded all over the living room. There was more playing, more listening to the backstories of all the toys and more gifts. We snacked cookies in the late morning which held us over until the first of the appetizers were ready. We said grace and enjoyed a tender lamb, fresh vegetables and latkas with the nice Russian River wine. We took a break before dessert and gave the kids a moment to unwind. Again, both the kids were treated with my parents' tucking them in bed. I said good night to everyone and my parents whisked me away to SFO to make my flight back home.
Like a blink of an eye, my visit to San Francisco was over and I was shuttling across the country back home after a very dear Christmas.
The lessons I learned for traveling for Christmas:
I love Christmas and I love wrapping gifts. I have rolls and rolls of wrapping paper that I have collected through the years and I have ribbons, gift tags, bows and trappings to present the gifts in a decorative manner. I get excited to find wrapping paper, ribbon and bows for sale after Christmas in patterns that I think look classic. I don't always buy new paper each time since a have about four viable rolls of paper, but when I see something that screams me, I do get it.
 |
| Two different Christmases, some of the same snowflake paper |
However traveling for the holiday wreaks havoc with wrapped gifts, so I thought ahead. It seems that every travel expert suggests not to travel with your gifts already wrapped. Therefore the first thing I did when I settled into London was hit an M&S to raid the clearance Christmas gift supplies. Gift bags, wrapping paper, crackers and holiday baubles were all discounted. I picked up some very stylish Christmas gift bags for 3 for £1, some matching tissue paper for £1 and a few treats as well. £6 later, I had everything I needed for presenting all my gifts next year.
 |
| Christmas in Union Square |
Months passed and I had been looking for flights to San Francisco and Oakland. The rates were outrageous even early on; I was pricing round trips at $600 or more. Eventually mid-September, I found two reasonable one way tickets to the West Coast and bought my ticket out on United ($174.60) and my return on American ($203.10). I finally picked my dates, I was traveling from December 22 to 25 and I confirmed that everyone was OK with my red-eyeing home.
Now on to my hotel rooms. I needed to complete a mattress run - the act of paying for a night in a hotel to earn points or credits or to maintain status - to maintain my gold status with Starwood. When I was finalizing my Christmas trip in September, I was two individual stays shy of the ten for the year. I booked the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf Hotel at my corporate account rate ($133.63 with tax) and the Westin St. Francis San Francisco on Union Square at the SPG points and cash rate, which Starwood counts toward your total number of stays. Additionally, I promised my mom, primarily, that I would book Christmas Eve in the same hotel as my parents, the Hampton Inn and Suites Oakland Airport – Alameda, to help make logistics simpler and I pre-paid for the room to get the best rate ($214.48 with tax).
In the meantime, I made arrangements for a work trip with a wacky itinerary to maximum my time without blowing my work budget. Due to the 5:30 am flight on a Saturday, I spent a night at a Philadelphia airport Starwood hotel the night before to ensure I made it to the airport on time. Therefore, I earned another night, bringing down my total to one night away from gold status.
 |
| A nice touch - a chalkboard in the room |
My flights and rooms were set, then it was time to think gifts. First, I suggested to my parents to wait until the Epiphany to exchange our gifts, since we would all be back home in Philadelphia by then and it’s also another traditional Christmastide day for presents. There is no reason to pack gifts to send or take to the West Coast only to exchange them and then pack the new gifts to return home. Now onto the children. I partially spoil my nephew and niece; for both their birthdays and for Christmas, I get them three gifts: a toy, some clothing and a book. I planned to go shopping at Target (in the Metreon) or Old Navy (at 4th and Market) for clothes and I could visit a Barnes & Noble in town for their books. The toys were the fly in the ointment. I headed to the kids’ wish list that my sister-in-law maintains for them on Amazon and remembered that I could take advantage of the Amazon Locker.
Amazon Locker is a self-service parcel delivery service offered by Amazon.com. Customers can select a Locker location as their delivery address in lieu of their residence. Retrieval is simple, go to the Locker location and provide the unique pick-up code and voilà the Locker opens with your parcel. This service was started to combat concerns of stolen packages and for customers missing the mail delivery. I used it to combat sending gifts too early or too late to one of the three hotels that I would be stay at for the Holiday. Also my brother and sister-in-law were taking the kids to Disneyland the week before our visit; I didn't want to worry about making all those arrangements to deliver my gifts to them since they might not be home when my packages arrived. The service is available about 10 areas in the US, so it might not be a total lifesaver just yet, but for me the service is in Philadelphia and the Bay Area. Now that I was sending toys to Amazon Lockers, I was set for traveling light and without needing to check any luggage.
 |
| Oh, Amazon Locker, how I love you |
Now to the morning of December 22nd, I made it to the airport without a hitch. I landed at 9:00 am and rushed into the Mission to have the Nebulous Potato Thing at the St Francis Fountain. By the time I got to restaurant, its was 10:00 am PST (1:00 pm EST). I hadn’t eaten anything after 6:00 am EST since United didn’t sell any food on the early morning flight out. I was headachy and hangry. The dish was good and I downed about three glasses of diet Coke before heading off to my hotel.
I created this trip to San Francisco like a scavenger hunt. I had three different hotel stays. I had errands on both sides of the bay. I had dates with three good friends. I had Amazon packages to pick up.
I settled in my room by noon, local time, and I had plans to meet a good friend in Berkeley for lunch. We caught up at Platano and enjoyed some papusas. While there I would stop by Chez Panisse for a gift certificate for my brother and sister-in-law. This was their first full year in the Bay Area and I got them a Lowes gift card for last Christmas. This year, I wanted to give them an opportunity to explore the area and visit Berkeley.
That night I had dinner plans with another good friend, Karen, and before catching the bus to go to the restaurant, Stones Throw, in Russian Hall, I picked up one of my Amazon Locker packages. I retrieved the gift, hopped on the 45 and serendipitously run into her on the bus. One big kink in my plans occurred when she told me over dinner, which was excellent, that night that there were no Barnes & Nobles in the city. They all closed a few years back. I had to go back to East Bay for the closest B&N.
 |
| The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, Western Addition - my view from the second Amazon Locker |
In Fisherman's Wharf by the hotel, I found a Ross: Dress for Less where I picked up the final Christmas gifts, a Safeway where I become acquainted with a delicious Russian River wine to bring on my third friend date and to Christmas dinner and Trader Joe's where I bought a treat for my friends' son.
I made it out to the Outer Sunset to see my friends before they left for there Christmas trip to Mexico. We had a wonderful time catching up and watching their son open up some of his presents from family members before the big day! I took an über back and I treated myself to a drink before calling it a night.
Christmas Eve morning, I gathered all my belongings, gifts and booze and make the trek to BART via the F Market and Wharves. There's something about the F line that resonates with me and connects me to my father. Streetcar lines and rail transportation are my father's interest and hobbies. Obviously with my love of travel, my father and I share this quirky interest. In fact, so many of my relatives have an interest in some form of transportation that we explain it away as part of the "Ryan gene." Therefore during a post-college trip to San Francisco, when I was open to the suggestion of finding a Christmas gift for my dad, I subscribed him to the Market Street Railway newsletter and he's been a member since.
 |
| The Bay Bridge from the F Market & Wharves as I Muni my way to BART |
I spent the afternoon playing with my nephew and niece. I got a tour of the house from the older one. The three of us fought light saber fights and my niece stole some mad moves from Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and sliced my feet from underneath me at the ankles. My nephew showed me his "second largest crayon" in the world. The younger one and I painted with glitter glue. "Uncle Casey, I like yours the best," she exclaimed at my opus, "You have technique." We went to the children's nativity mass and ate a creole inspired rice dish that my brother calls, "Market Rice."
Being nearly 3,000 miles from home didn't seem really that far when you're together with family. My parents got to tuck the kids into bed. I helped my sister-in-law wrap presents from Santa. My brother served us some egg nog and we enjoyed the silence before the Christmas excitement. Before we headed back to our hotel, I asked if we could go drive through Christmas Tree Lane, 3200 block of Thompson Avenue, in Alameda. It reminded me of our drives through South Philly.
We settled in our hotel and I prepared my gifts for the next day. Then I nestled into my bed and quickly passed out. My alarm woke me up and I joined my parents for breakfast. I was surprised how full the hotel was. We arrived at my brother's and Christmas had exploded all over the living room. There was more playing, more listening to the backstories of all the toys and more gifts. We snacked cookies in the late morning which held us over until the first of the appetizers were ready. We said grace and enjoyed a tender lamb, fresh vegetables and latkas with the nice Russian River wine. We took a break before dessert and gave the kids a moment to unwind. Again, both the kids were treated with my parents' tucking them in bed. I said good night to everyone and my parents whisked me away to SFO to make my flight back home.
Like a blink of an eye, my visit to San Francisco was over and I was shuttling across the country back home after a very dear Christmas.
 |
| Christmas gifts, ready, in gift bags from M&S |
- Figure out where in your itinerary you can be flexible and where you must adhere to definitive touch points. This flexibility could save you some cash. Pre-pay for lodgings, etc. for the days on which you have no flexibility.
- Like your favorite hotels on Facebook – Keep an eye out for deals that could appear and if you are social media savvy follow them on Twitter.
- Gift bags – either bring them with you (since they don't take up too much room in your luggage) or buy them in situ. TSA do have the authority to unwrap your presents in your bags and they will. Also you won't need to bother with tape and scissors when you use gift bags.
- Ship to your hotel – for those of you who want wrap your presents, you can ship them, if you plan to say in one location for a few days, your hotel will receive packages for you (some hotels may charge your a nominal fee). Better yet, stick with the gift bags and ship directly from the retailer to your hotel – then dress all your gifts in your gift bags – that eliminates the cost of shipping from your house to the hotel or host's house.
- Buy from Amazon and ship to Amazon lockers – if you are ordering from Amazon, send the package to an Amazon locker, many of which are in 7-Elevens throughout the country. Find a locker that is en route to a tourist attraction to consolidate your errands with fun.
- Give restaurant gift certificates – if you are staying at a hotel, ask your front desk clerk or concierge (when there’s no line) for his or her personal recommendation for a local place and give it to your host.
- Give home improvement and appliance store gift cards – no matter how long your host has lived in her or her a place, there will always be an immediate need or a home improvement project that needs to be funded.
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