Bay Area | December, 2020
December was a full month, filled with holiday decor, videochats, bouncing between San Francisco, Cupertino, and Oakland, and neighborhood walking tours, which I decided would be their own post. Recap below.
Our Office of Accountability Friendsgiving went virtual this year. Here’s Do-Hee presenting my secret santa gift for Eileen — seeds, and this stack of seed starter pots.
Our perfect little Christmas tree.
And an extra tiny tabletop tree that I decided to get so we could bring it around with us to Cupertino and Oakland. Then I discovered I already had a tiny fake one too, so I left that on my desk.
Delivering Dan and Jeri’s wedding album to them!
Shake Shack. and Pizza My Heart.
Mini dutch oven makes a beef stew!
Continuing the holiday decor, I decided to make a citrus garland! Starting with a whole rainbow of citruses.
Portable holiday decor, set one: Cupertino.
I also decided to forage a wreath for us, using materials found around the neighborhood to add to the base and pinecones I had saved from a previous year.
I also began preparations for my birthday the following month. Having come up with the idea to have my friends create a collaborative Shibori (Indigo dyed) quilt for me from afar, I then had to figure out which dye kit to use and test it.
The random pink bags I found around the house came out pretty cool! This was the wet version, but they lightened significantly after drying. More about the subsequent birthday party to come!
Sunset at Lake Merritt.
Portable holiday set 2: Oakland.
Our finished wreath, back in San Francisco. Plus, home improvement time. I’m now finally the proud owner of a power drill. After years of refusing to make holes in the wall or having to borrow friends’ tools for one-off projects.
I wanted to hang some floating shelves! So, first some tape visualizations…
And the final form. With a bunch of holiday cards donning the shelves!
Holiday Happy Hour with Alex’s dino mug.
Spotted Amanda selling wreaths as we picked up our pop-up lunch from Intu-on.
More holes into the wall: we finally hung the mirror that had been sitting on this bench for months. And in the second photo, beef noodle soup & braised pork over rice from Yilan Foods. Excellent Taiwanese food. Would definitely do again.
A lush winter garden. And also, at some point during all of this I spent a lot of time gathering, assembling, designing and ordering cards and sending out holiday gifts and holiday cards to my clients and my friends. It’s become a regular rhythm of my Decembers.
I also received a client gift from my wedding album company! All local goods from Louisville, Kentucky. Plus, mulled wine we ordered from Pomella in Oakland.
Picked up on one some shopping detours during our North Beach neighborhood walking tour: engraved notebooks from Shinola and Kamiya’s book about SF– one of the main inspirations for our neighborhood walks, Cool Gray City of Love.
Another round of beef stew, and Japanese basque cheesecake from bon, nene.
Meeting Courtney & Jackson’s new pup, Roux. And adding their handmade ornament to our tree.
We rode our bikes to the Ferry Building and impulse purchased this beautiful kettle that had been following us around in internet ads. We love it. Even discovered a hidden video game built into its display today, hahaha.
Our San Francisco family! Christmas Eve dinner, with all of us eating our separate dinners and meeting on Zoom.
Rugelach from Do-Hee & Josh
Portable holiday decor set #3: San Francisco!
Gai chicken & rice, at eaten in Dolores Park. And our puzzle we bought along our Noe Valley neighborhood walk, which we completed without looking at the box that very night.
Hot pot! It’s hard to do this with two people. We had way too much stuff and ate it for three days.
And finally, on New Year’s Eve, I photographed a beautiful little wedding and they sent me home with homemade boba, a full steak dinner, and gigantic cookies from the groom’s sister’s cookie company. So lovely. Plus our quiet little NYE with our miniature real champagne, at home.
Anna Wu is a wedding and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. She compulsively documents and blogs all of her daily adventures, even in quarantine. Follow her on instagram and view more of her professional work at annawu.com.
