A
short one this time—I'm still working on getting back on track, and
you don't want to waste hours of your Christmas reading my
barely-coherent ramblings.
Last
year, our Christmastime Disneyland visit turned out to be more of
Christmastime California Adventure visit, because the new Festival of
Holidays event proved so engaging. We didn't even visit the food
kiosks due to lack of funds, but I got a
good review of World of Color: Season of Light out of it, so it
wasn't a total loss.
This
year...it happened again. And this time we did
try some of the food offerings. More on that in a bit, but for now, I
want to focus on what a good idea the Festival of Holidays is in
general. Guys? Management guys? This
is how you leverage your California theme to provide quality
entertainment while still pulling in the money you love so much. If
there's one thing we Californians pride ourselves on, it's our
multicultural savvy.* This state boasts an extremely high level of
ethnic and cultural diversity, and by and large we embrace it.
The
Festival of Holidays acknowledges no fewer than five holiday
traditions: Christmas, Diwali (a Hindu lantern festival usually
falling in November), Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and Navidad—which is, yes,
simply what Christmas is called in Mexico, but the distinctiveness of
the Mexican traditions, and the high population of Mexican immigrants
in California, make it well worth treating separately. Each holiday
is identified on the food kiosks and other installations with a
Mickey Mouse icon bearing a colorful design typical of the
originating culture:
These
icons appear as ornaments in the evergreen garlands on the kiosks, as
well as on the menus—Christmas for familiar fare, Diwali for Indian
cuisine, Hanukkah for dishes popular with Jewish families, Kwanzaa
for Southern recipes and other foods traditional in African-American
subcultures, and Navidad for Mexican goodies. The kiosks themselves
each offer about three different things to try, plus drinks and maybe
a sweet treat. This
blog gives the list of individual kiosks, though not their menus.
We
were on a budget and could only try a few dishes, but they were well
worth it. I went for brisket on a bed of lightly cooked carrot
sticks, asparagus with bacon and feta cheese, and a Yule log
mini-cake—nothing too challenging, but also not stuff I have at
home. I kept thinking it would have been delightful to be there on a
five-day vacation, eating in accordance with a different holiday each
day.
The
food is only part of it, of course. There's also live music, ranging
from mariachi to klezmer to a cappella, reinforcing the cultural
roots of the five holidays. Between performances, you can also hang
out and enjoy a special area loop assembled for the occasion,
featuring a similar range of genres and styles:
So
on the whole, a fine time.
I
don't want to just leave it there, so I'll close with some photos of
the Christmas decorations around California Adventure. If I'd been
more prolific with posting this season, I'd have dedicated an entire
post to dissecting the way said decorations express the area themes,
the way I did a
while back with Disneyland, but again, I want to keep this one
pretty short.
Buena
Vista Street has the most “conventional” decorations, but even
so, the dominant evergreen is juniper rather than pine or fir.
There's actually a lot of juniper in the wreaths and garlands of
California Adventure, which I consider just ducky because it gives it
that semi-desert twist. The other thing to point out here are the
giant colored light bulbs. If the Carousel of Progress has taught us
one thing, it's that electric appliances really took off in the
1920s, and I bet that's when Christmas lights like this made the
scene. People probably thought they were just the bee's knees:
In
Hollywood Land, conversely, the garlands are made of 100% tinsel. Get
it?
Another
Christmas icon that makes perfect sense here is of course the star:
The
bridge in Pacific Wharf is decorated with these charmingly nautical
“wreaths”:
I
really like the garlands on the Little Mermaid facade, especially the
way they change in composition from bottom to top, like we're looking
at marine life zones:
Along
the back of Paradise Pier, we're back to juniper, with an odd
red-yellow-blue color scheme to the ornaments. I'm not sure it works,
to be honest:
The
west side of the Pier is all dressed up for ¡Viva
Navidad! and goes for broke with bright colors and papel picado
banners:
The
decorations in Grizzly Peak Airfield are pretty convincing as being
literally strung together from stuff people might already have on
hand while camping: strings of popcorn and cranberries, and ornaments
made from punched food cans:
Merry
Christmas to all my followers! If I have any left! See you next year!
*
Whether said pride is actually justified...let's just leave a pin in
that for now, shall we?
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