| rev:text
| - My family made a trip to the Winter Garden on Christmas day to see the Santa and Gingerbread House displays. We had a great time reading about the different Santa traditions from around the world and checking out all of the awesome Gingerbread Houses submitted into the annual contest by schools, organizations, and families from all over the Pittsburgh area. We really had a nice time.
Let me set the scene. You walk into a winter wonderland but the room is heated! Tall Santa mannequins are placed around the room dressed in traditional Santa or Christmas traditions from places like Ireland, China, Haiti, Russia, and several other places. In between the santas there are colorful, creative Gingerbread houses. There were houses with every theme you could think of. Some were clearly made by small children, while others look like they were put together by professionals. Each one is different and unique. As you look at the Christmas tree in the middle of the room, you see trains chugging around the tree and weaving their ways through the central Gingerbread neighborhood.
Visiting the space is free, but there is a mailbox to drop in donations. It is open on Christmas Day, and I believe on New Years Day and Thanksgiving day. You can also step outside and take a whirl on the ice skating rink...or giggle at the children who can't seem to keep their feet under them during what is obviously their first try on ice skates.
The only beef I've got is how one issue was resolved...or not resolved. While we were visiting, one large cockroach walked across the floor. I get it. There are doors that open directly to the outside, and inside there are a couple hundred gingerbread houses adorned with candy and icing and all sorts of goodies that the cockroaches surely consider to be their Christmas feast. Luckily, we only saw one. It's bound to happen due to the nature of the display and the fact that it is downtown. When we brought it to the attention of the woman working the display at the time, she told us, "If you kill it, you have to clean it up." She basically refused to remove the pest. I'm sorry, but if you are working somewhere with the public, you have to take responsibility for pests in the space. Also, if you are working a space that has a Christmas display, no matter how miserable you are, you need to at the very least fake a cheery disposition. It comes with the territory. Instead of using a broom and dustpan to dispose of the large bug, she gave sass and had a bad attitude...and let the bug continue to roam the floor! We were on our way out when we spotted it, so we didn't have to stick around to see if anymore would find their way out of the houses and on to the floor.
The only two things that would push this to a "five star" review is to spray the houses and rest of the building with an ample amount of bug spray to ensure they don't come out to terrify guests, and to make sure the employees who work the space can at least FAKE a smile...cause this girl was all out of Christmas Cheer.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)