Every day's a holiday

Posted by Matthew McQuilkin

https://www.fruitcakeenterprises.com/blog/2025/12/24/victoria-2025

[Adapted from working draft of my third "Christmastime travelogue" of the year, set to be send out next weekend.]

Monday, December 22: The Victoria Clipper

An overnight trip 11 months in the making! Longer than that, even; I just can't remember when we first started discussing taking an overnight trip to Victoria during the holiday season—I just know that Shobhit and Laney and I, all booked the Victoria Clipper, and a hotel, as far back as late January. By March, Laney coming along kind of fell through, and for a while I thought it would just be Shobhit and me. Shobhit kept trying to convince me to cancel the trip outright just to save money, which was very annoying. By June, Alexia—pictured with us, above—expressed interest in coming along, and within another couple of months she had her own ticket booked on the same Clipper ride, and her own room in the same hotel. This made me happy because Shobhit couldn't keep trying to convince me to cancel it. Side note: by the time the trip was done, he was openly commenting on how much fun it was and how glad he was that we all went. Go figure.

I have now been to Victoria eight times over the past 40 years, five of those over the last 20 years, and this is only the second time I have ever gone via the Clipper. I last went with Barbara, 25 years ago, in 2000. It was on that boat ride that I learned I can get seasick, and on this trip I went out of my way to make sure I had Dramamine on hand. It always works, so that's good.

Gingerbread Showcase Victoria

The Victoria Clipper has one daily sailing each direction between Seattle and Victoria. The northbound ride leaves at 8 a.m. and arrives at 11 a.m. This gave us a good five hours until the official check-in time of our hotel, and three hours before our hotel let us check in early.

In the meantime, in addition to the one major event that was the whole impetus for going to Victoria this time of year (I'll get to that momentarily), I naturally made a list of any and all holiday-season activities available to do in Victoria while we were there. And turns out, Victoria has its own gingerbread event each year, a Habitat for Humanity benefit called Gingerbread Showcase. This happens in the lobby at the Hotel Grand Pacific in Victoria, which was literally across the street from the ferry terminal, so it was an easy first destination.

Much like Gingerbread Village in Seattle's Sheraton Hotel lobby, people line up to take a look at all the "gingerbread creations" (as they term it here)—the key difference is that the Seattle event tends to have four huge creations made by large teams of people; the Victoria event has thirty-three creations, one of the rules of which is that they must be at least 18" tall. Which is to say, these are much smaller—but not necessarily less elaborate or impressive. We were truly stunned by a lot of them. The above house wasn't even the most impressive; it was simply one of my favorites, as I do love gingergothic architecture.

There were maybe three different sections where people lined up in the Hotel Grand Pacific lobby, to observe around 11 of these "gingerbread creations" each. And yes, the above absolutely stunning piece is a "gingerbread creation," made entirely of edible materials—also one of the three rules (the other being that it must fit on the 2' x 2' base provided). I had to restrain myself from reaching out and touching that fabric, it looked so real. This one was called The Heart of a Home, and on the informational sign we could reach about each creation, the artist for this one noted that what she was most proud of was the basket and quilt. I'd be the most proud of that too!

Some other fabulous creations included a bit of Whoville, a shipping container complex, a gingerbread co-op, and just about all of Middle Earth; some other fabulous details included a marshmallow llama and marshmallow sheep, a cookie campfire, and shredded wheat as bales of hay. I'm barely scratching the surface here, and I took 64 shots at this stop alone.

Fairmont Empress Hotel Lobby

Victoria is a ridiculously walkable city, with countless points of interest within blocks of each other. The Hotel Grand Pacific was also all of three blocks or so from our hotel; and Victoria's famous Fairmont Empress Hotel is about two and a half blocks away, just in a slightly different direction. We still needed time to kill before we could check in at our hotel, and as all the lists I found of holiday season activities in Victoria tended to mention the decor in the lobby at the Empress, we went over there too. The above shot is looking up at a large Christmas Tree in one of the many lobby sections of the hotel; click here to see it from above, on the second level.

It was in that lobby section that, while we were there, hotel staff set out cookies and hot chocolate, free for the taking. You know Shobhit and I are all about that shit! And these were high quality on both counts, complete with fresh whipped cream, marshmallows and thick crunched chocolate pieces. Naturally I loaded my cup with all of it.

Helms Inn Victoria

Helms Inn, a pretty nondescript looking hotel from the outside, was a lodging choice Shobhit and I landed on after a pretty protracted period of research and deliberation back in January. Alexia booked her room there for little reason other than so we would all be at the same hotel. And in the end, all three of us were so happy with our stay there that we're going to make a note of it as our first choice of booking the next time we visit Victoria. It's very centrally located, has spotless and very comfortable rooms, and is quite reasonably priced. Ironically given that Shobhit and I always look for this when we travel but it wasn't really needed here for just a one-night stay, our room did have a full kitchenette. The lady at the front desk was beyond nice and helpful, but then what else should we have expected?—she's Canadian.

Best of all, though, was how delightfully festive their lobby was for Christmas. The shot above was by far my favorite photo I took in there, though. Anyway, we went in first at around 12:15 and of course our rooms were not available; they let us lighten our load and store our bags in a locked closet, though. We came back again two hours later and by then both our rooms were available to check in.

Side note: Shobhit kept saying "Helms Inn" wrong. He would constantly say either "Hell's Inn," or a couple of times, "Helm's Deep." Pretty far off on both counts!

Festival of Trees Victoria

Victoria also has their own Festival of Trees, which, similar to the Seattle Festival of Trees benefiting Seattle Children's Hospital, benefits BC Children's Hospital. The Victoria festival features a whole lot more trees—dozens, some years apparently around 100—perhaps because there's more space for them at the Bay Centre shopping center than we have in Seattle's Fairmont Olympic Hotel lobby (to be fair, this lobby is much prettier than a shopping mall). Each tree is very much themed by their sponsor, and I got a particular kick out of this "Cookie Monster" tree, sponsored by RE/MAX.

A good example of the many sponsors who really leaned in with the services they provide as a theme for their tree: this is a detail shot of the tree made by Urban Smiles Victoria, a local dentist located in downtown Victoria. It even had a fun, tooth plushie as the tree topper.

An adorably tiny couple of tea tables on the Christmas Tree skirt, beneath the tree sponsored by Pendray Inn & Tea House.

The Magic of Christmas at Butchart Gardens

It's the reason for the season! Or at least, the primary reason for this trip: "The Magic of Christmas" at Butchart Gardens, a botanical garden that is beautiful to visit any time of year, but when I heard they deck it out in Christmas lights, I wanted to see it.

They sell packages where you can ride a shuttle bus straight there and back, but there was only one departure time and it didn't work very well for us. So, even though it takes a full hour to get out there, the city bus has far more flexibility with tons of buses out there and back all day—and a day pass on the bus costs only $6 CAD. (If you're not local, your only option is to get cash, which is a little annoying but whatever; this was the only thing we needed Canadian cash for, and Shobhit simply went to a nearby currency exchange to get $18 worth of Canadian money. And then? The machine on the bus out there was broken so we didn't even have to pay in that direction! We only had to pay the $3 to ride the bus back.)

It was pretty rainy in Victoria Monday evening, but we all brought umbrellas and it was fine. The gardens were spectacular, and we all agreed that it was well worth going out to, even on a one-hour bus in the rain. We caught the 3:05 bus at the stop across the street from our hotel; arrived at Butchart Gardens at about 4:15; spent about 65 minutes under our umbrellas in the gardens; waited a solid half hour for a bus headed back downtown to arrive; and got to our next destination at 6:30. We might have spent more time browsing the gift shop and the like, but given the wet and cold weather we were ready to head back. Between departure and return, the Butchart Gardens excursion took us a total of about three and a half hours.

Among many other great displays, one of the biggest delights at Butchart Gardens was the collection of 12 different displays scattered throughout, representing The Twelve Days of Christmas—the above shot representing by far my favorite of them, the "Three French Hens," drinking coffee and eating croissants by the Eiffel Tower. I did make a dedicated photo album just for these twelve displays, in countdown order, should you want to see them all.

Lights of Wonder - Victoria

Upon our return downtown from Butchart Gardens, we got off a few stops early, disembarking right on the block where "Lights of Wonder" is located, at Centennial Square. They basically pack the entire square with brilliant light displays, including a brightly lit—and functional—Ferris wheel. And it was free! So, you can bet your ass I wanted to ride it: I took the above shot from the top. Between the Ferris Wheel at Holiday Magic at the Washington State Fairgrounds and this one, I rode two holiday-season Ferris Wheels in the space of only three days.

It was very cold and breezy riding this thing but I'm still super glad we did it. Afterward, Shobhit used Yelp to find us a nearby Mexican place for dinner called Maiiz, and it was so spectacularly authentic that, along with our hotel, I will be making a note to seek that place out again whenever we next visit Victoria. If any of you might go there soon, put it on your list!

Did I mention the British Columbia Parliament Buildings are beautifully lit on winter nights? They've been outlining the buildings with lights since 1897, to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and have been lit nightly throughout the year since 1965. They add red and green colors to the lights during the holiday season.

Tuesday, December 23: Miniature World - Victoria

This one was also part of the original plan, one of the few major points of interest in Victoria that I still had never done: Miniature World, with a wide array of themes among its many miniature displays. I used the above shot because Alexia can be seen at upper left for scale. She was happy to go with me while Shobhit, who usually has little to no interest in museums, roamed around the city on his own, I should note, though, that this little holiday display was at the front desk and most of the dioramas inside are exponentially larger.

The museum has a few more war-destroyed cities than I needed, but still had a pretty diverse array of themes, from historic Canadian cityscapes to fairy tales to the circus to an array of elaborate dollhouses. In some cases a display kind of combined the cityscape with the dollhouse, offering a cross section of a large building: check out the couple of naked women in this one! (There's also a naked man in a bathtub, but alas, he's sitting so we don't get to see his butt.)

Alexia took this fantastic shot of me, wearing my new candy cane earrings I found at a nearby shop, at the quite-delicious Murchie's Tea & Coffee. We were at a shop selling all-Canadian-made merchandise about a block away, where Alexia purchased a calendar, and when she asked the cashier if he knew of a good place to get pastries, he did a very convincing deadpan when he said, "Are you kidding?" and then acted kind of shocked we did not know about Murchie's. So we went over there, and it did not disappoint. Shobhit and I shared a delicious Greek sandwich; and I had a super tasty "Christmas Tea Latte" (the drink Alexia also ordered), along with lemon tea shortbread cookies.

Black Ball Ferry to Port Angeles

You may notice the header here does not say "Victoria Clipper back to Seattle." Why? Because our return trip on the Clipper got canceled! The northbound trip from Seattle in the morning was canceled too—no sailings at all on Tuesday, due to an "unforeseen mechanical issue beyond our control," so said the email notice Shobhit happened to see before I was even out of bed Tuesday morning.

Funny that this should happen the day after our hotel desk woman informed us that a bunch of the BC Ferries—a different ferry agency—had been canceled on Monday due to high winds. At that time, we were just grateful we had made it on the Clipper, and as of yet had no indication that our itinerary would be affected. Turned out ours was affected by something totally unrelated.

The Clipper offered us three options: we could rebook our return trip for another day (this option being presented to us the day before Christmas Eve—ha!); we could cancel our return trip for a 50% refund and make alternative travel arrangements (not very easily done when we got all the way up there without any vehicles); or we could take up the Clipper's offer of re-booking us on the Black Ball Ferry scheduled to leave for Port Angeles at 4:00—an hour earlier than the Clipper was originally scheduled to leave—with shuttle buses waiting to drive us two and a half hours back to Seattle from there. We took that last option. The Black Ball Ferry left at about 4:20, roughly 20 minutes delayed; the buses got us to Seattle at about 9:20, a good 90 minutes later than the Clipper was originally scheduled to arrive. So, what originally should have been a three-hour, point-to-point boat ride turned into a five-hour boat-and-bus journey.

But, whatever: I used the time on the bus efficiently, working on editing photos and my draft of this very email. Plus I got some great photos of Victoria at dusk as this other ferry pulled away. You can see from the shot above that we got a beautiful sunset as we sailed away. The whole trip was so much fun we still all felt it was well worth it, even considering both the weather and the travel inconveniences.

[posted 4:45pm]

https://www.fruitcakeenterprises.com/blog/2025/12/24/victoria-2025