Life Lesson Learned: Signs are there for a reason
How are we just a couple of weeks away from Christmas? Maybe it’s just me, but my brain seems to be stuck in September for some reason. Time is flying way too fast this year, and I can’t seem to keep up!
Now that we are, in fact, in December (despite what my brain seems to think), my parents and I like to try and do at least a few Christmas-y activities on the weekends. Some of these are more close-to-home traditions, but every year we generally do one entertainment attraction that requires some kind of ticket. (Last year, for example, we saw the play “A Christmas Carol” in downtown Cleveland).
This time around, we chose to go to the Cleveland Botanical Garden for their seasonal attraction “Frost.” I couldn’t even remember the last time I had been to the gardens. (All I know is that it was for a gingerbread themed display!)
Being planners, we purchased our tickets in advance so as not to end up out of luck with admittance. The one area I didn’t do much investigating was the parking situation, but I didn’t think I needed to do so. The garden’s website said they had their very own parking garage, which took the stress out of finding a place to park. Or so I thought….
The Botanical Garden is located in the University Circle area of downtown Cleveland. The drive there is thankfully a straight shot once you get off the highway, and GPS makes it easy to not get lost. In fact, as soon as we saw a parking garage entrance, I thought, Great! That was easy! We paid to enter, and got a great parking spot on the second level.
But before we got out of the car, I noticed a banner in the garage showcasing a medieval suit of armor and a sign about how to get to the museum entrance. That’s odd, I thought. Maybe the parking garage is shared by the garden and the Museum of Art?
Since Google maps was showing the gardens as being right around the corner, I naively assumed the correct building we needed was just tucked behind the garage. But a quick walk down the sidewalk revealed that we were supposed to have stayed on the main road that led up the hill, and not turn onto the side road for the parking garage that clearly had a massive “Cleveland Museum of Art” sign up front. Oops…(I’m going to blame this one on a night of poor sleep).
Realizing the mistake, we returned to the car so we could drive to the proper garage and I was grateful that we didn’t have to interact with the garage attendant on the way out and admit the screw-up. (I would have been in the back seat refusing to make eye contact otherwise).
Parking mishap aside, I was still excited about the attraction and I had no idea what to expect as I had avoided reading too much so as to be surprised on the day.
The best way I could describe it is a Christmas tree shop mixed with an art installation and tourist pop-up attraction. The first section was certainly more artsy, and featured a beautiful walkway of poinsettias that led to a giant arctic-themed room. (Truthfully I felt like I was on the studio set of a Rankin/Bass movie that was supposed to take place somewhere cold). It was definitely picturesque and I appreciated the display even though it basically only existed for the purpose of taking photos.
It reminded me a bit of those pop-up attractions in NYC where you pay an overpriced admissions fee to take a bunch of Instagram photos in just 15 minutes. I leaned the hard way with those tourist traps when I wasted money on one that was egg-themed …
Throughout the hallways of the main building were Christmas trees decorated by various local organizations. It was fun to see what themes everyone chose, though there were so many nature-inspired trees they were starting to blend together after a while! I was particularly delighted to see a tree decorated with mushrooms, fairies and birdhouses, three of my mom’s favorite things. I think she and I both wish we had enough room in our own houses to put up multiple trees decorated in different ways!
Since we were at a botanical garden, we figured we might as well head through two indoor plant environments: tropical and desert. I was surprised to find they had thrown a few Christmas decorations into each area, but I was so overwhelmed by the suffocating humidity and heat that I couldn’t wait to get out of there. (The live butterflies were a joy to see though!) Honestly I have no idea how people can get into the Christmas spirit in warm climates; give me cool temperatures and snow for December any day!
My favorite display by far was the gingerbread house and display competition. I’ve covered the topic of gingerbread houses for work multiple times (shameless plug for my recent story here), so I really have an appreciation for the amount of work that goes into these creations! Plus, every time I make my own house using a kit, it ends up looking like it was created by a 5-year-old; so I truly commend these bakers (both novice and professional) for their impressive, edible works of art!
Our last stop (other than the gift shop that should have been arrested for highway robbery), was the small display of lights outside in the plaza. Normally I’m not a fan of overcast weather, but since we were visiting during the day, it did make it easier to see and photograph all of the lights. Unfortunately, it did start to rain during our brief walk outside, which meant we didn’t spend much time exploring. (And wouldn’t you know it; the rain stopped as soon as we were done. Sounds about right!)
My overall thoughts about the exhibit? It was cute and certainly festive. Worth the price? Not so much. Yes, it also included admission to the gardens, but there isn’t exactly much to see this time of year! Basically you’re paying full admission for something you’re going to get through exploring in a couple of hours max.
That being said, it was still a fun Christmas activity (and we stopped for a late lunch at a Chinese buffet afterwards, which is always a win in our book!)
Life Lesson Learned: Look for the “back door”
Christmastime in New York is just as magical as it appears in the movies, and I’m glad I got to spend so many years admiring all of the decorations that go up throughout the city in December.
Of course, no visit to NYC at Christmas is complete without stopping to see the Rockefeller Tree. I went for the first time with my then co-worker in 2015 (you can read about it here), and I was pleasantly surprised to find that although it was crowded…it was tolerable. In fact, we even had a front-row spot to the light show on the facade of Sak’s Fifth Avenue.
But with each passing year, I felt like the crowds in the Rockefeller Plaza had begun to get suffocating. Honestly it was so bad that it was almost hard to breathe at times. Hoards of people trying to cross between Sak’s and the entrance of the plaza meant the only way you’d get anywhere fast was if you started to crowd surf.
I hated everything about it, but there was absolutely no way I was not going to see the tree. It didn’t matter that I got photos every single season that probably looked indistinguishable to most people. I felt the same as Kevin McCallister; it was a must.
The majority of tourists prefer to see the tree for the first time from fifth avenue, and in 2015, I completely understood why!
(I did wise up in 2016 and discovered that if you stood on one of the concrete benches, you could get a gorgeous photo that didn’t feature the backs of hundreds of heads and phones being held in the air).
But I knew there was no way that I was going to deal with the crowds in that area every season, especially when I already had that “wow-worthy” photo. So one year I decided to try something different; I made my way to the plaza from Sixth Ave. (down W. 50th to be specific), and was absolutely delighted to find the tree was there, and easily accessible, in all its glowing glory.
This meant I could get great shots of the tree and actually get to see it up close without getting my internal organs smashed by hoards of people. (Sure, the trade-off was having to avoid the countless families and couples taking selfies in front of the tree –and I’m pretty sure I was asked at least a few times to take photos for people–but it was worth it!)
I had discovered a “back door,” and knew I’d never be going down Fifth Avenue at dark during the holidays ever again. (Ironically this “back door” was anything but secret, yet it still was one of the least popular ways to get to the tree. I never understood why!) Plus, you could still see the Saks’ light show throughout the entire plaza.
Another perk? Sixth Ave. is packed with its own amazing decorations that you can still enjoy, and with less crowds too. My favorite was always the giant ornaments!
Seeing the Rockefeller Tree in person will forever be one of my beloved NYC memories! In fact, I have an ornament of the tree I purchased from the Christmas in New York shop (and two years ago also bought one for my mom online) so I can still get a little taste of it even now at home.
Best of all? I can admire it whenever I want….and no crowd-induced claustrophobia required!
That's What Shay Said 