San Francisco Nutcracker Weekend

We had a really nice little weekend getaway in San Francisco. It all started with plans to go see the Nutcracker. Despite Rylan & Tim saying, after last year, that they might not want to go again if we went this year, and despite me trying to sway Aubrey to go see an alternative holiday show or a Nutcracker performance outside of the city, in the end we decided we’d go do the class SF Ballet rendition. I couldn’t help want to go, for Aubrey and Sierra’s sake, when Aubrey told us several times that her favorite holiday experience last year was going to see the Nutcracker. Sierra, too, really wanted a chance to go see it since she was too young to go last year. And, once Rylan found out Aubrey & Sierra were going to get to go, he wanted to go too. So it became a whole family outing.

 

I had thought about taking the family to go to the snow while we had extra time off over Xmas break, but the weather has been so warm and sunny, I wasn’t feeling so inspired and had avoided committing to travel dates. So, a few days ago on our way home from Christmas with the family, I thought for the first time that perhaps, instead, we just make a little longer trip out of our SF Ballet day.

We found a great price on a hotel near Union Square, and then were able to use Tim’s free hotel stays he’s earned on hotels.com to stay for just $25 at the Hotel Carlton – on a Saturday night during Xmas season nonetheless!

We found several things to do while in the City, and were also lucky enough to enjoy great weather the entire weekend. We first went to the Japanese Tea Garden. The kids enjoyed it and climbed on the big bridge twice, but I sure remembered it being more of an “experience” and larger than it actually was. Luckily the kids didn’t have any expectations and were happy with it as is. Aubrey took some photos of her own with her new camera and said “I’m glad you took us here, Mommy. It’s so pretty.”

 

Since the Tea Garden went so quick, we had time to head over to a park we discovered earlier this year, the Helen Diller Playground at Dolores Park. We had packed lunches to eat on the way there, which left a full 45 minutes for the kids to play before we headed to the Nutcracker Matinee.

The Helen Diller playground is quite unique, with a super long slide and super wide slide that dominates the play area and the kids’ attention there. The only tough part of going on a sunny Saturday was that the playground was quite full! Of course, the kids didn’t think they had enough time to play, but we had to move them on when it got close to 1pm.

We headed over to the Opera House and got lucky enough to find on-street parking and pay only $1 for the entire time we watched the show! So rare in San Francisco. I got the girls changed into their fancy dresses they’d talked about wearing to the Nutcracker for a year – one we’d had as a hand me down which fit Sierra, and the other that matched Sierra’s dress that we’d found at the thrift store last year (and after all that planning, Aubrey almost didn’t want to wear hers). Rylan even had worn his collared shirt. We didn’t expect to have this problem, but we’d planned on cold weather, so even without our jackets we were all dressed too warm!

We were up high in the balcony – buying seats for 5 people to watch a show is expensive! –  and we had two seats in front and three in back. Sierra sat on my lap in back for the first half, but during the second half she wanted to be up front with the big kids. We finally worked out that she could share the seat with Aubrey, either side by side or in her lap. They actually partially stood much of the time though – since they had a railing in front of them and us behind them, it didn’t really matter.

We went and checked into the Hotel Carlton after the show. I really enjoyed the welcoming atmosphere of the hotel. The lobby was really large with a warm fireplace and cool sand sculpture in front, and they had a wine reception every evening for hotel guests to come mingle and enjoy complimentary wine. When they saw our kids in the lobby, they brought each of the kids blown up beach balls and said “Welcome to San Francisco!”. And, to add to all this, they upgraded us to a suite on the top floor! Instead of having a small room with two double beds, we got two adjoining rooms each with a king bed, and a nice view of the city.

Because of our welcoming hotel room experience (and free wine reception), we didn’t head out to dinner until 6:30pm. That may have been a mistake. We walked down to Union Square, and although it was a pretty short walk, by the time we looked at the Christmas tree and ice skating rink, we realized we didn’t consider how long we might have to wait for dinner. We put our names in at Daily Grille and were told it would be a 45 minute wait, which had us sitting down to eat close to 8pm. Fine for adults, not great for three little kids. I then suggested we walk over to the Fairmont hotel to look at the gingerbread houses during our wait, but after 4-5 blocks of carrying a 3 year old (and getting hot doing so – believe it or not), we turned back around and were all quite weary from all our walking once back at the Daily Grille. Luckily, once we sat down it was a very nice atmosphere, welcoming to kids (activity sheets, lemonade and dessert included in kids’ meals), and good food.

On Sunday morning, we enjoyed some time in our luxurious suite before heading out. I had a nice cup of coffee while looking at the city down below, the kids turned the convertible sofa into a jungle gym…

We almost decided against going ice skating after I saw how small and crowded the rink was the night before, but the girls really wanted to go ice skating over anything else we suggested to them to do in the city that day, so we headed back over to Union Square around 10am. I am really glad we did it! It was so much fun ice skating there. Rylan and Aubrey ended up being fine ice skating on their own, without my help, so we were all able to be on the ice at the same time. Tim stayed on the side lines as he’s not an ice skater, he says. I held Sierra’s hands and took her around for the morning skating session. There were mostly families there so it wasn’t too fast of a pace for our kids. The couple times I fell with Sierra (mostly trying not to have her fall and taking the fall myself), there were skaters who worked at the rink there immediately to check on us – which made me feel much safer knowing that if I didn’t see Aubrey or Rylan fall somewhere that they needed serious help or attention, that there was someone else looking out for the skaters.

The kids did great and got really comfortable skating– and had smiles on their faces the whole time. After skating, we got some coffee, cider and a cinnamon twist and enjoyed sitting in the busy Union Square for a little while before heading back home.

All in all, it was a really fun family getaway, and one I’d like to make a tradition for our family, in some form or another, each year.