No Christmas Season is complete without Christmas Celebrations! The first Christmas celebration of the year is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade...IT ENDS WITH SANTA! But since Thanksgiving is for...you know...Thanksgiving, I refuse to put it on this list. But there are plenty of awesome Christmas Celebrations and Festivals worth talking about...here's 10 I found!
1. Winter Wonderland, Hyde Park, London
During the Christmas season, Hyde Park
becomes Winter Wonderland as Londoners celebrate the holidays with one of the
world’s biggest festivals. Last year more than 2 million visitors attended, and
for good reason. Winter Wonderland has traditional Christmas festival elements:
an ice rink, visits with Santa Claus, more holiday food than you could possibly
sample and Christmas shopping. Plus, it also has 2 Christmas-themed Cirque du
Soleil-style circuses by Zippos Circus, as well as 2 massive rollercoasters, a
nearly 200-foot high enclosed-pod observation wheel, kids rides and Santa Land.
2. Christmas Festival of Lights, Portland
Portland, OR,
is probably not the first place you look to as a holiday destination, but the
hundreds of thousands of people who attend the annual Christmas Festival of
Lights at The Grotto would beg to differ. “We’ve been unable to find anything
like it in the world, so we call it the world’s largest choral festival,” says
Jane Tokito, development director for The Grotto. “It’s unique.” The Christmas
festival showcases a pretty spectacular lighting display with more than 1
million lights (which take 7 weeks to hang).
3. Santa Claus Christmas Celebration, Santa Claus, IN
I guess it makes sense that if you want to experience
important Christmas celebrations, you should include a visit to Santa Claus,
IN. “America’s
Christmas Hometown” celebrates the holiday with its 3-week Santa Claus
Christmas Celebration. At the festival you can drive the 1.2-mile Family
Christmas Light Adventure along Lake Rudolph,
discover the “Shining Story of Rudolph” and even roast chestnuts over an open
fire at Santa’s Candy Castle. Shopping and dining are aplenty, and for a unique
twist on the Christmas spirit, you can stay at Santa’s Lodge. Here, take a look!
4. Christmas in Ice, North Pole, Alaska
Experience a slightly different take on the Christmas
festival in the town of North Pole,
AK. The city 14 miles south of Fairbanks, AK,
trucks in about 2.2 million pounds of ice, which talented sculptors then turn
into amazing works of art. When the ice chips stop flying, the Christmas in Ice
festival is a forest of beautifully lit, intricately carved Christmas ice
sculptures. In North Pole, one thing sponsors don’t have to worry about is a
warm spell ruining the festival.
5. Rockefeller Center,
New York City
Probably the most famous Christmas Tree in the country, the
lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree has become a spectacle all its
own. The tree is erected and lit in late
November or early December; and in recent years, the lighting has been
broadcast live nationwide on NBC's Christmas in Rockefeller
Center show and scheduled for the
Wednesday after Thanksgiving. The tree, usually a Norway spruce 69 to 100 feet
(21 to 30 m) tall, has been put up every year since 1933. The iconic towering tree is set aglow with
some 30,000 bulbs that glisten down upon the ice-skating rink, bugling lit-up
angels, and wide-eyed tourists
6. Dollywood's Smoky Mountain Christmas
Festival, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Leave it to ever-colorful Dollywood to devise an enormous,
boot-stompin', Southern-style Christmas extravaganza: the Smoky Mountain
Christmas Festival. As Christmas approaches, the theme park transforms into a
Winter Wonderland laden with holiday decorations and lights, as well as dozens
of special activities and performances. Visitors will enjoy evening caroling,
holiday lights and fireworks shows, nightly parades, the acoustic Appalachian
Christmas performance, a Christmas on Ice skating production, a performance of
"'Twas the Night Before Christmas," and even Santa's Workshop and the
Kringle Kids Shopping Mall. Be sure to join the Polar Express 4-D Experience;
the film is brought to life using 4-D technology.
7. The Great Dickens Christmas Fair, San Francisco
If you're in the Bay Area and looking for holiday cheer,
head to the Great Dickens Christmas Fair to catch a live version one of the
most iconic films of all time, "A Christmas Carol."
The fair transforms a San Francisco
exhibition hall into the streets of Victorian London. You'll find music venues,
pubs, dance floors, Christmas shops, and hundreds of performers dressed in
period costumes interacting with fair-goers, who also often dress up. Continuous performances take place across
seven stages, while Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and other
characters from Dickens' London
roam the streets. Other activities include old-fashioned holiday games, music
and dancing, Punch and Judy puppet shows, a visit from Father Christmas and
Victorian arts and crafts.
8. Budapest Christmas Fair, Budapest, Hungary
Every holiday season, Budapest's
Vorosmarty Square
transforms into Hungary's
largest Christmas market, draped with twinkling lights and filled with vendors
selling traditional Hungarian Christmas decorations and crafts.
In addition to shopping at more than 120 stalls, visitors
enjoy jazz and world music concerts, dance performances, and puppet shows for
children. Warm your spirits and belly
with traditional Hungarian treats, including Kurtoskalacs, or Chimney Cakes,
stuffed cabbage, roasted goose thigh and pork knuckle. Grab a mug of hot,
mulled wine, and watch the "light painting" on the square's historic
buildings, an event held each evening of the fair.
9. Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade
For more than a century, Newport Beach’s
“Christmas Boat Parade” has delighted spectators with a “Christmas-sea” feeling
all its own. A fine flotilla of some 200 vibrantly decorated vessels, from
multimillion-dollar yachts right down to simple canoes, glides through Newport
Harbor as holiday music and
costumed carolers fill the air with melodious merrymaking. The brilliant boat
parade (it’s the oldest one in the country) attracts close to a million
viewers; it’s held nightly from December 14 through December 18 and lasts about
2.5 hours – show up on the closing night for a fireworks finale. Viewing areas
for the beaming 14-mile boat route are on the public beaches and establishments
bordering the Balboa Peninsula, the Fun Zone amusement area (where you can hear
live commentary from Captain Mike Whitehead, the official voice of the parade),
and Balboa Island.
10. Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, Chicago
Chicago’s frosty
winter weather, festive events, and glittering lights make it a hotbed for
holiday spirit. The annual “Magnificent Mile Lights Festival” is at the city’s
celebratory epicenter, where more than a million lights on 200 trees flank the
famous shopping strip, with hundreds of shop’s holiday window displays adding
to the appeal. Don’t miss stepping in to
see Macy’s 45-feet-high Great Tree, and downtown’s sparkling Christmas tree in Daley
Plaza, which has been illuminating
this plaza for 98 years! Also in Chicago:
a Santa’s workshop for the kids and German-style Christmas market ensure
the square is positively brimming with holiday cheer!
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