We slept well following all the walking we did, slumbering after we finished most of ‘The Family Stone’ was done. In the quiet of the night, I pad silently out to the kitchen for a glass of water, looking out across the street to the row of houses that has all the Christmas lights displayed. In a few weeks, after the holidays have finished, the street will be quieter, but if there is snow it will be brighter. There are drawbacks and benefits to both. On this night it is cozy enough, and I savor the moment. The next day will extend our Holiday Stroll, but it doesn’t begin until brunch at 11, and until such time we rest and relax and take our time waking. Buffering such luxuries is why I like to be prepared and unrushed.
This cheeky peanut thief greeted us as we walked into Sunday morning on Braddock Park. Not content to scrounge around in the little garden square, he haughtily stood on his hind legs and brazenly posed until I got the perfect shot. Everyone wanted to be part of this Holiday Stroll. We made our way into Back Bay and a sinfully excessive brunch at Club Cafe.
Eating until beyond our hearts and stomachs were content (Kira went back to the buffet three times to my one, not that anyone was counting) we were then ready to walk it all off again, which we started to do with a visit to the SoWa Market.
On the way, we stopped at this Christmas tree stand which we always seem to pass at some point during our stroll. A welcome feast for our noses, the evergreens and pines filled the space with their pungent holiday scents, completing our sensory enjoyment and capping the weekend with a familiar fragrance memory.
When we arrived at the market, there was some Winter Festival happening, but the line wrapped around two blocks and I don’t do a line that wraps around anything, so we passed by and picked up some items at Bobby from Boston.
(We did not pick up these wooden choir boys.)
We made our way through Chinatown, where I thought we might find Kira a reasonable substitute for a green dragon-embroidered robe she had seen at the market. Alas, the Chinatown shops of just a few years ago have closed or moved, and the shell of retail options left us bereft of any such robe. We paused in a few sad spots, but the main thing for sale was food. It had been a couple of hours since our brunch, so who were we to deny the pull of that? A couple of years ago we had a dim sum moment on one of these strolls, and we were happy to try to recreate that magic now. It worked only minimally – you can never do the same thing twice, no matter how fierce, and it was a futile exercise in trying to recapture what was once such a novelty.
We wound our way back through Downtown Crossing and into Faneuil Hall, where we were just in time for the lighting of their grand Christmas tree and a promised ‘special light show’ starting at 4:30. Dusk was falling and made the perfect backdrop for the tree. Mariah’s Christmas classic started up and the lights began moving. I haven’t been the biggest fan of Faneuil Hall since I actually moved to Boston many years ago, but it holds a special place in my heart at this time of the year, and despite the crowds and stupid tourists, there’s a bit of magic that creeps into my most jaded assessments of the place. We stepped carefully over the cobblestone walkways and ended up at Government Center, where we had, in the final hours of our Holiday Stroll, the unique and unexpected delight that I’d been hoping but not specifically planning for.
I’d read about the skating rink here, but forgotten about it – and never really thought much about visiting. We happened upon it en route to the T-stop, and though I should have been on the Mass Turnpike if I was going to make it home at a reasonable hour, the excitement and charm of a little make-shift village and shops was too magical to resist. Kira has been wanting to skate for some time, but that’s just not my scene. I promise her a cross-country ski trek in January, perhaps in Vermont. For now, we watched from the sidelines as our Holiday Stroll concluded with a cool blast of Boston whipping by our chilled cheeks.
