Lights, gingerbread, parades

Holiday happenings from coast to coast

Charles Sykes/AP Photo The 74-foot-tall Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York.

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By Beth J. Harpaz, Associated Press 12:03 PM Saturday, December 17, 2011

Elaborate gingerbread houses, boat parades, train shows and dazzling light shows that illuminate entire neighborhoods are all part of the holiday fun this year for the Christmas and New Year’s season. Here’s a selection of beautiful things to see and interesting things to do around the country now through early January.

In Manhattan, the Rockefeller Center tree stays lit until Jan. 7. This year it’s a 74-foot-tall Norway spruce illuminated by 30,000 lights. You can go skating at the rink onsite, see the Christmas show at nearby Radio City Music Hall or visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. Other favorite Christmas trees around Manhattan include the tree and Neapolitan Baroque creche at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, up through Jan. 8, and the origami holiday tree at the American Museum of Natural History through Jan. 2. Elsewhere in the city, through Jan. 16, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan is hosting an exhibit called “America’s Parade: Celebrating 85 Years of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.”

In Washington, D.C., you’ll find the National Christmas Tree, a 26-foot Colorado blue spruce, located on the Ellipse, a park between the White House and the National Mall.

New Orleans offers Creole traditions and other festivities throughout the Christmas season, including a holiday light display in City Park, filled with twinkling 100-year-old oak trees; holiday displays at the Botanical Garden and Storyland; and New Orleans Reveillon, an old French Creole holiday dining tradition available in restaurants around the city with prix fixe menus and dishes like absinthe oyster soup and sugarcane smoked duck.

There are nearly 50 holiday boats parades in Florida from Pensacola to Key West with lighted boats illuminating waterways and harbors. A good directory of the parades is online at www.floridabywater.com/component/content/article/1647-boat-parades.

At the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, a holiday train show is on display through Jan. 16 in the Enid A. Haupt Conservancy features miniature versions of Yankee Stadium, the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. At the Chicago Botanic Garden, through Jan. 1, the Wonderland Express holiday train exhibit includes more than 80 miniature Chicago landmarks including Navy Pier, Soldier Field, the Art Institute, and more. At the Krohn Conservatory in Cincinnati, “Trains, Trestles and Traditions” includes poinsettias, trains and lights, through Jan. 1.

Taos Ski Valley hosts torch light parades on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. The resort says that “crowds gather at the bottom of the mountain to watch as skiers make their way down the mountain in the dark with flares as their only means of light.”

Many hotels are now hosting displays of elaborate gingerbread houses created by pastry chefs and artists. The Capital Hotel in Little Rock, Ark., The Clifton Inn in Charlottesville, Va., and The Jefferson, in Washington, D.C., are all hosting ornate gingerbread displays. Mohegan Sun, a casino in Connecticut, is hosting a 24-foot lifesize gingerbread house. At Le Parker Meridien hotel in Manhattan, through Jan. 6, some of the city’s top bakeries have contributed gingerbread masterpieces.

At Universal Studios Hollywood in California, CityWalk is hosting a “Holiday Lights Spectacular.” At Universal Studios in Orlando, the Macy’s Holiday Parade is held every evening through Jan. 1 with some of the same floats, characters and balloons that were seen on the streets of Manhattan Thanksgiving Day.

Christmas at the Biltmore estate in Asheville, N.C. features 57 Christmas trees in the Biltmore House and nearly 500 wreaths around the estate. Thousands of lights illuminate the National Historic Landmark and grounds, and the estate offers a variety of tours and other events throughout the holiday season.

Christmas celebrations have a long tradition there, going back to Christmas Eve 1895, when George Washington Vanderbilt first opened Biltmore House to family and friends.

In Riverside, Calif., The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa is hosting its 19th annual Festival of Lights, with 3.6 million lights through Jan. 8, plus horse-drawn carriages, carolers, and more. Over 300,000 people visited the Mission Inn last year.

Arkansas is offering a downloadable “Trail of Holiday Lights” brochure at http://www.arkansas.com/things-to-do/trail-of-lights/ with details on lighting displays and other events in more than 60 communities around the state.

In Wheeling, W.Va., the Oglebay Resort & Conference Center hosts the Winter Festival of Lights through Jan. 8. The show covers more than 300 acres over a six-mile drive with larger-than-life lighting displays including a Ferris wheel, dinosaurs, a poinsettia wreath, and “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

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