First Christmas in Vancouver

Sweethearts in Vancouver?

Hello or should I say ho ho ho everyone!

Christmas can be one of the hardest times to live abroad. Missing out of all the family traditions can feel like someone is stabbing you directly to the heart, especially when you can see a glance of all the coziness through a video call (or from social media - let’s be honest, most us will find ourselves scrolling social media even on Christmas).

Although me and Mr. Husband have been together 10 year, this Christmas was the first one we spent away from our families. And most of all - abroad. To avoid losing our nerves over Christmas cooking and crying those salty homesick-tears down to the cheese plate, we decided to book one night getaway in Vancouver. To be honest, hotel prices almost got us to rethink our decision, but eventually we decided to go with Pan Pacific Hotel Vancouver as breakfast was included in the price and location was easily accessible for us by a Seabus.

When Christmas Eve arrived and after few calls back to home to Finland, we packed our stuff including Christmas chocolates (but excluding camera, sorry!) and hopped first into the bus and then entered to the crowded Seabus. Walk distance between Seabus and Pan Pacific Hotel was only around 10 minutes, which went quickly as sun served it’s best rays over the harbour. Seeing sun on Christmas Eve was a surprise as originally weather forecast promised rain, like most of other days in Vancouver.

View from our hotel room

Checking into the hotel was quick and when we opened our room door I was extremely pleased how big the room was! On the website it promised somewhere around 33 sqm which would’ve been already way bigger than most of the hotel rooms we’ve stayed at. But I have a feeling that we might have gotten one of the biggest Deluxe Rooms (the basic room type), as hotel seemed to be relatively quiet. Happy surprise as well as nice view over the downtown.

We didn’t have too much time to spend on our room before heading to our Christmas Eve Buffet at Hyatt Regency Mosaic Grille-restaurant. For about 30 minutes we just walk around downtown, taking in the fact that we are really spending our first Christmas in North America. Live music was all around, streets were empty, stores were closing doors early and everyone just seemed to be on good mood.

Okay let’s get into the FOOD! How good was that buffet?! I can’t stress enough how delicious everything was. So many food options from salads to seafood, from traditional turkey to risotto and variety of desserts. Shout out also to the restaurant staff - we spoke quite a bit with one of the waiters, who was originally from Indonesia, but had lived all over Southeast Asia before moving to Vancouver, which she’d called home for around 20 years now. It was funny hearing once again, how life just happens and eventually you wake up one day realizing how many years have passed since your first steps around then a new country, nowadays a place called home.

After eating for two hours we were more than ready to roll downhill back to our hotel room. But first we had a mission - we needed to vote for our favourite Gingerbread House in the Hyatt Regency Lobby and Gingerbread Lane! Fun fact - this event usually attracts 20 000 visitors each year, and I’m not surprised. All of the buildings were on totally different level. Like there was even an alligator made of ginger bread and it had some fancy tech system, so it could bite? Like what?

After making the tough decision, the rest of the evening was all about boardgames, movies, wine and chocolate - the casual Christmas mood, with a fancier twist of not cooking.

On the Christmas Day we put on our best swag (=Christmas sweaters) and enjoyed slow breakfast with scrambled eggs, porridge and all that usual hotel-breakfast-jazz. After the breakfast we felt little sporty, so before heading back to our home base North Vancouver we walked to the Robson Square in the pouring rain, rented pair of skates for CAD 5 and just enjoyed the casual, although crowded, Christmas Day skating around the ice tray. And we didn’t fall over, so you may call it a success!

Overall our first Christmas in Vancouver was lovely. And once again, while strolling around the weirdly silent streets of Vancouver, between the high buildings, it hit us again. That funny, weird, out of the body feeling. Like you are only observing your own life as an outsider, not actually living it.

We really live in Canada. And it feels so absurd - six years of dreaming is now reality. 

And it feels xmas good.

Hi it’s me!

I hope you all had lovely holidays and happy last days of 2024 <3

x Krista