Meier & Frank | I Tri and Craft

One of the reasons I love the Christmas holiday is the traditions.

I love reviving old family traditions, and making new ones. I love remembering fondly the things that I did as a child at Christmas time and the things I couldn’t wait to do again.

As an adult, I get to make sure our family participates in our traditions and make new ones.

When I was little we used to go to a Breakfast with Santa. We would get dressed up and go downtown to Meier & Frank department store. (OK, I am gonna be honest and say I don’t really know if that was where it was held, but that’s what I remember. It might have happened elsewhere and my family will correct me when they read this)

In a gigantic beautifully decorated room we would have breakfast and Santa would show up. We all took turns getting our pictures with Santa and telling him what we wanted for Christmas.

I don’t really remember the details, but I remember the magic and the joy I felt.

I later found out we stopped doing it because the event deteriorated. The last year we attended we didn’t get a breakfast, but a box with a PB&J sandwich, or something like that. Plus the quality of the event was more cheap then magical. My mom decided it wasn’t worth it anymore.

Last year I decided I had to find a Breakfast with Santa event for us.

I found McMenamins, a local brewery & restaurant, hosts a Santa Breakfast. I love McMenamins so I thought it would be perfect. They have many wonderful restaurants around town.

Both last year and this year, I bought tickets too late, so I didn’t get the location I wanted. The last available location was at the Crystal Ballroom, a magnificent venue for concerts.

It is a buffet breakfast, but a good one because McMenamins has good food.

Santa comes early and you can go up at anytime to talk to him and take pictures. They don’t have a professional photographer, you just take your own.

Then all the kids run around and have a great time.

I love doing this because the kids don’t have to wait for hours in a line to see Santa. I will visit Santa this way for as long as I can.

What are your Christmas Traditions?

One of the reasons I love the Christmas holiday is the traditions.

I love reviving old family traditions, and making new ones. I love remembering fondly the things that I did as a child at Christmas time and the things I couldn’t wait to do again.

As an adult, I get to make sure our family participates in our traditions and make new ones.

One tradition from my childhood that I loved was the story of the Cinnamon Bear. A local radio station would broadcast the story in fifteen minute increments starting around Thanksgiving and running through Christmas Eve. The story debut in 1937 and is still broadcasted here in Portland, with the expectation of a few years.

I don’t remember listing to it in the evening (of course that doesn’t mean we didn’t), which is when it usually aired. But I do remember my grade school teacher had the recording and each day we would sit as a group and listen to the story. The story is about a pair of twins who wonder up to the attic to look for Christmas decorations and find themselves transported to a magical land.

In Portland Lipman Wolfe sponsored the radio broadcast and the Cinnamon Bear would visit the Lipman’s department store every year at Christmas. When we went to see Santa at Meier & Frank‘s Department Store we would also head over to Lipman’s for a visit with the Cinnamon bear. Over the years the store was bought out and eventually closed for good in 1990.

Sometime in the last 10 years, the Portland Spirit Cruise Ship started hosting a Cinnamon Bear Cruise. The cruise ship is 150′ yacht with three public decks, it usually hosts dinner cruises up and down the Willamette River.

The Cinnamon Bear Cruise is a two-hour cruise that includes pictures with the Cinnamon Bear, story time and a magic show. Kids also get to meet other characters of the story and become Honorary Candy Buccaneers in the wheel house.

When Ian’s first Christmas was approaching I was delighted to find that he gets to enjoy this Christmas memory I had growing up. Even if his memory will be a little more elaborate than mine was.