One of the first places I visited when I started coming out to Southern California to visit was the Hotel del Coronado, on Coronado Island in San Diego.
Hotel Del Coronado postcard (between 1907 and 1914), Baja California and the West Postcard Collection. MSS 235. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. [Public Domain]I fell in love with San Diego right away and tried very hard to get a job there, but fate led me to Los Angeles instead. Still, I've found ways of returning to the city to the south and its grand dame of a Victorian hotel, known simply as "The Del."
I've eaten at the restaurant, gotten a hot shell massage in the spa, and taken the historical tour (on a gloomy day during lots of construction, so my photos aren't publishable) and the haunted Halloween tour—but the one thing I was really yearning to do was see the Christmas lights.
This year, I finally made it down during the season that's usually too busy to squeeze in a visit, and got to see the smokestack from the old power plant all lit up in red and green.
The lights outlining the original Victorian building from 1888 are an absolute showstopper.
And every year, as the hotel switches on its lightscape, it switches up its holiday theme—usually something like "Making Seasides Bright" (2015) or in tribute to its movie history, like as a filming location for Some Like It Hot.
But this year, it was a "Holiday in Oz," with various trees throughout the property devoted to the main characters of The Wizard of Oz book, which was written by frequent Coronado visitor (and rumored Hotel Del collaborator) L. Frank Baum. The fir on the front porch bears the theme, "There's No Place Like Home."
Is the outside of the Coronet Room glowing green because of Christmas or the Wicked Witch of the West?
What about the glittering green lights in the Norfolk Island pines...
...including the one that became the world's first electrified Christmas tree in 1904?
Either way, the green soon gives way to a dazzling array of colors from pink to red and blue—perhaps in tribute to Glinda and Dorothy—during a light show that dances to instrumental versions of songs from The Wizard of Oz movie.
The tannenbaum in the lobby evokes the road to Oz, with a yellow brick path made of golden balloons and ornaments that represent the Tin Man (a funnel cap), Dorothy (ruby slippers and Toto in a basket), the Scarecrow (a floppy burlap hat), and so on.
It's all part of the "Tinsel Trail," which also includes oversized poppies and dandelions in the hotel's interior courtyard.
We would've liked to see (and hear) something a little more Christmasy, but the whole world is going crazy for Wizard of Oz stuff with the success of the Wicked movies. And The Del is proud of its historical connection to Baum, as is the entire island. So it was bound to happen one of these years.
Maybe one day I'll get to stay at the Hotel del Coronado and be able to enjoy it at a more leisurely pace.
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