GARDENS-VARIETY EVENING : After a Spin Around Roger’s Holiday Fantasy Land, There’s Edie’s in Corona del Mar for Dinner
The days leading up to Christmas can be so hectic that I often forget to enjoy the season. It becomes a blur of poinsettias and guessing loved ones’ sizes and catching a few minutes of the Charlie Brown TV special.
But I have a feeling that my visit to Roger’s Gardens is going to change my holiday routine from now on. This garden shop/landscape service/florist transforms itself each November into a fantasy land for kids and grown-ups. It’s a step out of the ordinary that puts more fun into the Christmas season.
4 to 4:30: On your left, just past the cash registers, is the Gallery room, where the original Roger’s Gardens Christmas celebration started in 1975. The room contains about 30 10-foot trees overloaded with ornaments and bows and lights. It’s dazzling.
Each tree is decked out in a different theme. The Della Robia tree’s theme is Italian; it holds mandolin-playing cherubs and bunches of oversize purple glass grapes.
The Victorian Christmas tree has miniatures of rocking horses, nutcrackers and girls warming their hands in fur muffs. The tree called Under the Sea has aqua-colored branches that hold clay starfish and glass fish.
Among the trees are dinner tables set with holiday china.
In the center of the room is a bunch of four trees decorated with ornaments by Christopher Radko, one of America’s top designers. The ornaments are limited-edition (a maximum of 500 of each is made), mouth-blown and hand-painted. There is a silver elephant atop a red ball for $32.95 and a Santa in pink long underwear for $19.95.
4:30 to 5: Leave the Gallery, and to your left is a toy train that runs over a bridge, past a tiny water tower and along a miniature waterfall. The train seems to enthrall the three-foot-tall-and-under set.
To your right is a tent full of poinsettias--red, white, pink, yellow and mixed.
The rear building, called the Garden Rooms, is a refuge for shoppers looking for unusual, country-style gifts. You’ll find everything from books on gardening and cooking to hand-painted watering cans to papier-mache snowmen.
The prices are a little high, and reach into the hundreds of dollars for some antique items. But there are more reasonable items, too, such as a small brown bear for $12.50.
5 to 5:45: If your aim is to buy a Christmas tree--pre-cut, living or artificial--you’ll want to tour the outside grounds of Roger’s Gardens before it gets dark.
But if you’re there to see the Christmas lights or Santa, the outdoor gardens are best viewed after sunset. On every day but Sunday, you can catch Santa seated in the Gazebo from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. He is there Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
5:45 to 6:45: Just down the hill, on Coast Highway, is Edie’s Diner, a replica of a 1950s-style coffee shop. Dinner at Edie’s is a good complement to a day at Roger’s Gardens because they’re both family-oriented and fun.
The decor is black-and-white tile with lots of chrome. Waitresses wear pins with such names as “Sandra Dee,” and the waiters wear bow-ties. A Three Stooges video was playing on a nearby screen, but the sound was drowned out by ‘50s tunes such as Ricky Nelson’s “Travelin’ Man” and Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog.”
Burgers and sandwiches run about $6; dinners and blue-plate specials are about $7. There’s a children’s menu, too, and the most expensive item is a fried chicken plate with French fries for $2.49. If you order a dinner or a blue-plate special at Edie’s--and clean your plate--a piece of pie is only $1 more.
6:45 to 7: A dessert alternative is the Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt shop, just a couple of doors down. Golden Spoon offers 40 types of toppings, and frozen yogurt flavors such as peanut butter, French vanilla and holiday egg nog.
