Having a wedding anniversary in the middle of the holidays isn’t ideal, but it was definitely planned. As with most of the things my husband and I plan in our lives, however, it doesn’t make much sense. The holidays are the busiest time of the year—what with travel and shopping and planning—and this year, in the middle of all that, came our 10-year anniversary.
Fortunately, we have plenty of options for celebrating on the Central Coast, a place where couples from Southern California come to escape, and we simply can pack a toothbrush and a little cash and—voila!—instant second honeymoon. So that’s what we did. But it wasn’t an instant decision; we tossed around ideas of a four-day weekend in Costa Rica or Kauai, until out-of-town friends questioned why we would want to leave the perfect vacation spot.
Since we were staying here, we gave ourselves permission to be a bit frivolous, starting with a shopping spree in Santa Barbara. We wound our way over San Marcos Pass and down into the city for some non-Christmas, totally selfish shopping. Perusing Paseo Nuevo is always fun, especially hearing passers-by speaking in so many different foreign languages and accents. The shopping, on the other hand: We weren’t feeling it. The funny thing is, with permission to buy anything I wanted, I couldn’t. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew there were kids’ Christmas gifts to buy, decorations, and stuff for baking. Plus, all the people bustling about with their bags of goodies, hurrying from store to store, served as a constant reminder. I found a blouse at Nordstrom. On sale for $5. Woohoo. Out. Of. Control.
With our shopping spree complete, we backtracked and headed to Solvang, where just 10 years ago we first made our home. It’s the place where Ron proposed to me, in a little restaurant called Mandarin Touch. It’s usually quiet, but on that day more than a decade ago, the Solvang Century was in town and the restaurant was filled with raucous cyclists. During a short lull, Ron got ready to pop the question, during which I spilled hot tea all over my hand, nearly necessitating medical care.
This time, Julefest was in full force. Christmas in the Danish Capital of America is picture perfect. Julefest is one of my favorite times in Solvang, with the lights and decorations—it’s so cute. Yes, sorry Solvang Visitor’s and Conference Bureau: cute. Like one big gingerbread house, except that when you walk through the gingerbread door, there’s a gingerbread village inside. So it’s like that: a gingerbread house inside a gingerbread house.
The description really isn’t all that off. There actually is a large gingerbread house in Solvang. Fourth generation-Danish baker Bent Olsen of Olsen’s Danish Village Bakery, 1529 Mission Drive, created a 10-foot-tall gingerbread house using about 250 pounds of gingerbread dough, 150 pounds of powered sugar, and three gallons of egg whites.
The sweetest part of our trip, however, came when we checked into the Santa Ynez Inn. That’s “sweet” as in “slide into a giant Jacuzzi tub, then wrap yourself into a fluffy white robe and slippers.” Santa Ynez Inn makes luxury seem like a necessity. And by that, I mean it’s really hard to imagine going back to the real world. With Friday evening hors d’oeuvres, wine tasting and chair massages, and palatial rooms, it was easy to imagine not leaving the inn. Ever.
We sat by our in-room fireplace drinking wine and watching a Beatles documentary, marveling at the fact that, after 10 years, a great night out is a quiet night in, in a place not too far from home.
Arts Editor Shelly Cone is now back to a routine of taking kids to school, work, dinner, more work, cleaning until midnight, and then starting over again. She can be reached at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 24-31, 2009.