I went to Denver for five days last December and had a lovely time visiting my uncle and seeing friends. It’s a great time of year to go — there is a festive vibe in the air, and if you’re lucky, nature may grant you a snow day.

Today’s post is all about the things we did around Denver. Tomorrow’s will be about friends and food.

Thanks to my generous uncle for hosting me!

I spontaneously ordered this hat on Black Friday, and it arrived just before this trip. It… looked better on the model on the website. But I wore it the whole time I was in Denver.

We stopped at City Floral to look for a Christmas tree. No luck, but it was nice to walk around.

I made a new friend:

No trip to Denver is complete without a stop at Tattered Cover bookstore. I purchased an autographed copy of recent Pulitzer winner The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

17th Street Mall was beautifully decked out in holiday decor.

Denver skyline view:

We ventured downtown to Union Station on Saturday evening — there were so many holiday parties going on.

We attempted to grab a drink at the tony Cooper Lounge but no dice. Regardless, the view from the second level is impressive:

My uncle continued to show me around — this is Mercantile, an upscale market and restaurant:

And here’s Terminal Bar, a great spot to grab a drink on the main floor:

By the time we left Union Station 20 minutes later, it had begun to snow… and it didn’t let up all night.

The Oxford Hotel is just across the street; my uncle walked me through the stately lobby:

And this is The Cruise Room at the Oxford Hotel — what a fun spot for a drink!

Within 15 minutes, the whole downtown area was blanketed with a layer of snow. I love how these colorful buffalo (which I recall from my trip here last March) look like they’re trudging through the snow:

We ended up at Larimer Square, a historic block with great restaurant options.

This is the exterior of Rioja, where we ended up getting dinner:

We enjoyed a lovely dinner as the snow continued to accumulate outside:

After dinner, we slowly shuffled over to the DCPA (Denver Center for the Performing Arts) in the snow to see Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris. I’d never seen that play before and was glad to catch it. The show felt dated (Sedaris published it in 1999) but it was a nice night out, and I always enjoy seeing theater with my uncle.

The view from home — a very different picture compared to four hours earlier:

And that same view the following morning — beautiful!

It’s a bonafide snow day. We push our plans to visit Boulder to the following day, and instead mostly stay indoors: I bake bread, see a movie, and we cook a nice dinner. Later in the evening I string the lights on my uncle’s newly purchased Christmas tree. We watch the first few sketches on SNL over a glass of wine.

A few pretty interior shots at my uncle’s place:

Back tomorrow with a full report of the friends we saw and meals we ate!