Riverside’s Festival of Trees (2022)

I remember silently gawking at the beautiful Christmas trees back when I first attended the Festival of Trees at the Riverside Convention Center in 2019. Unfortunately, I didn’t do much gawking this time around. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn’t see enough holiday cheer in the atmosphere and was thus just turned off by everything.

I think the lack of holiday cheer started off with my observation of how mean the employees manning the exterior of the Riverside Convention Center looked. I am not joking, here. I get that this was the day after Thanksgiving and any worker would rather not be working, but do you really have to look like a prick to everyone that’s trying to enjoy a holiday event (Festival of Lights and Festival of Trees)? One specific employee looked at people with so much hate and suspicion. I couldn’t help but to wonder if it was because he wasn’t POC and the majority of attendees were POC (Hispanic looking)? I hate thinking that way but I believe that’s what it was all about and I can’t help but to have a bitter aftertaste in regards to it. It definitely set a not so pleasant tone for me once I got inside the Riverside Convention Center.

The trees were nice to look at, but honestly, nothing out of the ordinary, save for about three or so trees.

I must say that I was more impressed with the trees shown in 2019 for some reason.

For people that like Christmas themed items, there were plenty of vendors selling crafty items that I didn’t care for, since it was just unnecessary in this pre-recession.

Outside, at the bottom of the Riverside Convention Center, there were more vendors. I just took a quick look around and left because there wasn’t anything I needed or wanted. I must say I was taken aback by one specific booth for selling a pillow with a KPop (BTS, most likely) group on it, though. Strange because it didn’t fit in with the aesthetics of the festival at all. It’d have been one thing if the Kpop members were in reindeer costumes or something… Well, that would be quite a sight now, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, if you want to see my footage of the Festival of Trees, please click here to watch and enjoy!