14: “It was the best of times…”

I’ve been perusing some of my old facebook photo albums and when I came across this one from last December, I had two thoughts:

1. Wow, I can’t believe that was ONLY a year ago! It feels like it’s been ages…
   and
2. I’m so excited that we’re going back this year! Only four weeks until we’re back there again.

And if you didn’t CLICK on the album link, you have no idea what I’m talking about. And I could be mean and just keep talking about “last December” and let you lazy bums wonder what happened that I’m so excited about, but what the heck. I get lazy sometimes, too.

So, last December, Joe took me up to San Francisco for the Great Dickens Christmas Fair. And it. Was. FABULOUS. The pictures in that facebook album don’t do it justice (partly because the camera I had back then was kiiiiind of a piece of crap). The Fair is wonderful for so many reasons, but my favorite thing about it was the “show” which was woven into the entire day. There were cast members dressed up as various characters from Dickens’ most famous works, and they acted out classic scenes and stories in the middle of the busy London-esque atmosphere. Scrooge and his three ghosts appeared from time to time, telling the whole Christmas Carol story over the course of the day. And there was Nicholas Nickelby, and some others I’m failing to remember right now.

The whole thing is just magical. And I can’t wait to do it again this year!

And this time, Joe’s and my good friends (and our downstairs neighbors) Jeff and Leah will be joining us. Holla! It is going to be AWESOME. We’ll start by checking out the famous Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square and whatever else suits our fancy in San Fran, then Saturday will be All About Dickens, and Sunday we’ll head back down, stopping at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Cannery Row.

So, if you’re a blogger and you live anywhere NEAR San Francisco, you should definitely go to the Dickens Fair. And you should definitely go on Saturday, December 12th, because that’s when we’ll be there. And you should DEFINITELY tell me if you’re going to come, because then we can definitely have a casual blogger meet-up, and that?

Would pretty much make the entire weekend THAT much more wonderful.

Amy? I’m talking to you.

Oh, PS. Here’s a post from my olllld blog where I wrote about last year’s Dickens experience (coincidentally, during the first month I ever succeeded in posting every day for the NaBloPoMo challenge!).