I’m jumping back to Orange County for just this week before returning to my castles in Romania series. With only Christmas being a few short weeks away, I wanted to share another fun holiday thing to do if you are in the Orange County area this season.
I spoke about Roger’s Gardens, an upscale garden store in Newport Beach, a few months ago mentioning that they really go all out at Halloween and Christmas time with decadent displays. Well, I went a week ago and the holiday displays did not disappoint!
We first started out by entering the Wonder of Christmas Boutique at Roger’s Gardens. When I first walked in, a row of decorated trees mixed with sparkling lights and shimmery metallics seemed to stretch for miles and miles (it obviously doesn’t go that far but seemed to).
My favorite thing about the boutique is that you can find all sorts of gifts here that anyone (especially that hard to shop for person) will appreciate – or perhaps you might find something for yourself too. It’s also a great place, not only for gift ideas but home décor ideas as well! But most of all, it’s a great place to just stroll around and see some really beautiful Christmas displays. Holiday glamour to iconic Christmas – you name it, they have it!
The various theme-related decorated trees will catch your eye as well. They range from the traditional Classic Christmas to the whimsical Golden Shell (ocean-related). There are even designer trees like Eric Cortina and Christopher Radko. One of my favorites was the Travel the World tree with ornaments representing various parts of the Globe. We have a travel tree at home so this one particularly caught my eye. Hopefully my tree will look like that one day!
The decorations are not limited to tree ornaments of course – you will also see everything else imaginable like gingerbread houses, all sorts of Santa items, handcrafted Byers Choice Christmas Carolers, Nativity and other religious scenes, etc. There is even a lovely display area of handcrafted traditional German Christmas decorations like Nutcrackers and Christmas Pyramids.
After you’ve had your fill of Christmas gifts and décor you can move to the vast outdoors section with all things you can imagine for the outside of your home. Here you will see poinsettias, all varieties of live trees, and a garden room with even more decorations intended for outdoors. They also have professional florists who would be more than happy to create something for you from scratch…and they’re really good at what they do.
After all that browsing, I started to get hungry which I suspected would happen, so I made a reservation earlier for brunch at the Farmhouse Restaurant (on the premises) for my friends and me. Here, you are dining al fresco so you are still able to see all of the outdoor decorations – and there was a special surprise of roaming Lil’ Dickens Carolers. The quartet were dressed as Victorian-era carolers and strolled amongst the diners while singing traditional holiday tunes. They even asked us for a special request – I asked them to sing a song we would have heard in London at the time of Queen Victoria, “The Holly and the Ivy”. That tune, combined with all the Christmas displays of the day, made for a festive holiday afternoon! I didn’t make it yet this year to see the decorations at night but might need to make my way back for that. So no matter what time of day you go, Roger’s Gardens is a great little festivity to get you in to the holiday spirit!
Love Rogers Garden!