Downtown San Jose’s ‘Miracle’ bars get into the holiday spirits

Santa Claus came to town a bit early Wednesday night, stopping by the holiday pop-up bars that will make downtown San Jose a bit more festive over the next five weeks. It’s really the place to go if you enjoy the kitschy, ugly sweater side of Christmas — and the themed cocktails will certainly get you into the holiday spirit.

This year, the arcade bar Miniboss on Second and Santa Clara streets has been transformed into “Miracle at Miniboss,” and the crew really decked the halls around all the video games and pinball machines. It’s filled with props, inflatables and posters from Christmas movies Gen Xers and Millennials grew up with like “A Christmas Story,” “Elf,” “Christmas Vacation” and “Jingle All the Way.”

Craft cocktail lounge Paper Plane — also owned by Miniboss owners George Lahlouh and Dan Pham — is also back this year as “Miracle on First.” Compared to Miniboss, the vibe here is more Grandma’s house in the 1970s with wrapping paper, lights and tinsel everywhere. The two bars share the same special Miracle menu for the month — the green-hued Christmas Cricket with tequila, minty amaro and vanilla liqueur is the standout, along with the gingerbread-tinged Snowball Old Fashioned — so it really depends on which atmosphere matches your mood.

And as it did last year, 55 South on Post Street has gotten a makeover as Sippin’ Santa, the tiki-holiday mashup that is a companion to Miracle. This is where you can go if you prefer your Santa surfing instead of on a sleigh and are in the mood for a Kris Kringle Colada or a pumpkin-flavored Island of Misfit Toys.

Santa Claus, with Mrs. Claus and a couple of elves, made his rounds on opening night Wednesday — their really busy period doesn’t start until after Thanksgiving, after all — handing out fluffy socks, T-shirts and shot glasses to revelers he ran into. The “Miracle” pop-ups are part of a promotion that started in New York City in 2014 and has grown globally to include Canada, England, Mexico and the Netherlands. Sippin’ Santa started the following year and has similarly spread around the continent.

By the way, you don’t need to go to downtown San Jose for some holiday-themed fun. Owner Jason Seeley has turned Los Gatos Soda Works into a winter wonderland with its own pop-up called Making Spirits Bright. It’s quite a sight with colorful lights all over the building at 21 College Ave. — including a Christmas-light train on the roofline — but given its smallish capacity, I recommend getting there early or making a reservation. Otherwise, you’ll just end up with a lump of coal in your glass.

ROLLING IN KNOWLEDGE: Aloha Downtown Skate got off to a good start this week, and San Jose resident Carl Salas — co-founder of Salas O’Brien and a senior mechanical engineer himself — tells me it’s a good replacement for ice skating, and not just because you won’t freeze your butt off when you fall.

“You have no idea how ‘soft’ the carbon footprint of the roller rink is, compared to that required by the ice rink,” he said. He calculated that switching from ice skates to roller skates results in a savings of about 150,000 pounds of greenhouse gases from mid-November through Jan. 14 when it closes. And that, he noted, doesn’t even include the real cost savings on an electric bill from keeping that ice frozen for two months.

Saves the environment and money? I say we roll with it for a while.

FEELING GENEROUS: What do you get after Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday? Giving Tuesday, of course, the day when people are asked not to buy but to donate to the nonprofits of their choice.

Sunnyvale Community Services is taking the opportunity to welcome its supporters to check out the nonprofit’s new headquarters at 1160 Kern Ave., which it moved into during the pandemic. Executive Director Marie Bernard says the organization is pairing its online giving campaign with the in-person tours of the facility — three times bigger than its previous home — and Star One Credit Union is matching up to $10,000 in donations that day.

Preregistration was required for the Sunnyvale event, but even if you’re missing it, you can always donate to them at www.svcommunityservices.org or give generously to one of the other charities on your “nice” list.

SHORT TAKES: Scotty Cornfield’s résumé must look like an M.C. Escher drawing. He jumped from a short career in journalism to a long career in law enforcement, and, upon his retirement in 2008 after 28 years with the San Jose Police Department, the former homicide detective dabbled in comedy and jumped into the world of screenwriting. Now, he’s written his first book, “Fast Fiction: 101 Stories of 101 Words Each.”

“Like I tell people, even if it’s the worst story you’ve ever read, it’s over in 30 seconds (45 if you’re a slow reader),” he said.

A Monterey Peninsula resident these days, Cornfield had a book launch on Nov. 18 in Salinas and has another reading coming up Nov. 29 at 5 p.m. at Olivia & Daisy Book Boutique in Carmel Valley. The book’s also available on Amazon.com, and Cornfield says he’d love to do a reading in the South Bay if any bookstores are interested. He’s reachable at www.scottycornfield.com.

TIE COLLECTION: Big crowds have shown up for the San Jose Earthquakes World Cup viewing parties at San Pedro Square — especially for Friday morning’s big match between the United States and England, during which both San Pedro and St. John streets were packed with TV viewers (with some even watching from the second and third floors of the Market Street parking garage). No Black Friday shopping — at least besides beer at O’Flaherty’s, Old Wagon Saloon and San Pedro Square Market — for this crowd, which saw the U.S. team earn its second draw in the tournament.

That makes Tuesday’s 11 a.m. match against Iran a must-win for the United States, and with an England-Wales game taking place at the same time, I’ve got a good guess where a lot of people will be working remotely that morning. We’re all covering for each other, right?