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The Best of the Holiday
Season
Around The South
Historic Holidays
by Renee Wright
originally published in Square Dancing Today, 2003
Some of the most famous Christmas celebrations in the nation are held at historic houses and districts decked out in their holiday finery.
This page contains a brief description of each destination. For more complete coverage, and up-to-date links, use the pull-down menu below.
Biltmore and the Carolina Mountains
On Christmas, 1895, George Vanderbilt opened his magnificent home to guests for the first time, setting a standard for holiday splendor. Today, you can be one of those guests during Christmas at Biltmore Estate, from early November through New Years.
The house is decorated with Christmas trees in every room, including a 34-foot Frazier fir in the Banquet Hall. Wreaths and garlands abound. Candlelight Evening tours are most popular and reservations are essential.
For many Carolina families, this is a Christmas tradition. Make reservations online at www.biltmore.com or by calling 800.289.1895.
While you're at it, plan to dine at one of the Biltmore's outstanding restaurants. All the restaurants will serve a special Christmas menu, available only to Candlelight Evening reservation holders.
The Deerpark Restaurant offers an elegant Candlelight Christmas Buffet ($31.95), the Stable Cafe and The Dining Room serve prix fixe menus ($29.95 and $42.95 respectively). Check out the mouthwatering menus, also online.
Asheville celebrates the Season with "Light Up Your Holidays."
Beginning in late November with the annual Holiday Parade, Asheville's vibrant downtown turns on with a half-million twinkling decorations and a full lineup of holiday events. Highlights include "Dear Santa" at the Flatrock Playhouse, Santa rappelling down Chimney Rock in preparation for his Big Day, and the Annual Cataloochee Ski & Snowboard School Torchlight Parade in Maggie Valley on on the day after Christmas.
Festivities conclude on New Year's Eve with Asheville's FirstNight, an alcohol-free party that features performances by 50 arts groups all over downtown. The complete schedule of events is posted at www.exploreasheville.com where you'll also find holiday recipes and decorating tips from the Biltmore, Grove Park, and other area inns.
Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa also hosts legendary holiday celebrations. Decorations include 25 unique trees and some 200 gingerbread houses, entries in the Inn's annual National Gingerbread House Competition (early Nov.). Other events include a new Wine & Food Festival (late Nov.), weekday holiday concerts, phenomenal Thanksgiving and Christmas buffets, and special parties hosted by Major Bear, the Inn's mascot. Visit www.groveparkinn.com for details.
Further north, the village of Blowing Rock (www.blowingrock.com) presents an Old Fashioned Christmas from throughout December. Several ski areas nearby, including Sugar Mountain and Appalachian, host special New Year's celebrations complete with fireworks.
Williamsburg, Virginia
The Christmas decorations at Colonial Williamsburg set the style for the holidays in many American homes. Classic wreaths and arrangements are made entirely of natural evergreens and fruit available in the mid-1700s in Virginia.
Some 700 wreaths and more than four miles of pine rope adorn every door, mantel and table in the historic district during the holiday season, from Thanksgiving Day to New Years Day. During this period, the dirt streets of this living history city are lit by some 1200 electric candles and by torches called cressets that burn wood faggots. Visitors truly feel they have time-traveled to colonial days when Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia.
The Grand Illumination is the official "kick-off" for Williamsburg’s Christmas season to be held each year in early December. This free outdoor festival is Colonial Williamsburg’s gift to US citizens, and tens of thousands attend every year. Live period music by fife and drums, balladeers and choirs, sounds from stages and streets, beginning at 4:45pm. At 6:15, the fireworks, or more properly "groundworks" due to their low altitude, begin. The ground level displays occur simultaneously from three separate locations in the historic district, literally surrounding revelers with explosions.
During the holiday season, Colonial Williamsburg schedules many special events. You can take a seminar on how to create the traditional Williamsburg decorations (or you can simply buy them online at www.williamsburgmarketplace.com).
The very popular Christmas Decoration Walking Tour, special living history presentations that recreate the holidays as celebrated in colonial days, and seasonal concerts fill the month of December. Don’t miss the exhibit of antique toys at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.
During this time, the taverns in the historic district serve traditional holiday fare adapted from colonial menus, and the Williamsburg Inn offers a special holiday tea most afternoons.
The historic buildings and museums of Colonial Williamsburg are open 365 days a year, including Christmas Day and New Years. You can find much more information at www.history.org or call 800.HISTORY.
Old Salem
An entirely different holiday tradition awaits visitors to the living history village of Old Salem, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Settled by Moravians in the mid-1700s, Old Salem preserves the customs of this Protestant sect from Moravia and Germany.
Multi-pointed Moravian Advent stars are the best known of the unique ornaments created by village craftsmen. Look also for angels and other figures made by the Old Salem tin-smiths. Thin Moravian cookies, flavored with ginger and walnut, make wonderful holiday treats or gifts.
Old Salem’s Christmas Open House is in early November. Other special holiday events include candlelight tours, "Wehnachtfest: A Taste of the Holidays," and "Tavern Festivities," a guided tour of Christmas Past at the 1874 Tavern with live music, games and food. Visit www.oldsalem.org or call 336.721.7350.
Tryon Palace
North Carolina’s first colonial capital in New Bern recreates the Christmas celebrations of the landed gentry and the slaves of eastern North Carolina in the 18th and 19th centuries, from Thanksgiving until late December. Five hundred candles light the pathways during candlelight tours of the royal governor's palace and the nearby Civil War camp.
Other seasonal events include Holiday Decoration walking tours, a Christmas Marketplace, and Jonkonnu, the re-creation of an African-American yuletide celebration unique to the region. More information at www.tryonpalace.org or 800.767.1560.
The Carolina Inn
Located in the heart of the historic Chapel Hill campus of the University of North Carolina, the 75-year-old Carolina Inn celebrates Christmas with its "Twelve Days of Christmas" festival.
From early December to early January, the hotel’s lobby and public areas exhibit 12 unique works of art in a variety of media that bring the traditional carol to life. New this year is a Gingerbread Competition featuring the famed buildings of the Carolina campus in cake and candy.
Themed events include an annual "Nine Ladies Dancing" swing dance, the "Lords A-Leaping" Lunch with Woody Herman, the Voice of Tar Heel basketball, and a Scottish Highland Game Dinner. Festivities commence with a free Open House on the first weekend of December, and conclude on January 6 with the "Fete des Trois Rois" French-themed dinner from the Carolina Inn's fabulous kitchen. For a complete schedule, visit www.carolinainn.com or call 919.913.1010.
Greensboro's State Street Station, an intimate shopping district housed in historic buildings, invites guests to its annual Wassail Tea Jubilee, in mid-November from 5-8pm. Visit www.statestreetstation.com or call 336.644.1230.
Jekyll Island
Beginning with the lighting of the community tree in late November, Jekyll Island fetes visitors as the island’s inns open their doors for the holidays.
Evening tram tours are offered through the Jekyll Island Club and the National Historic Landmark District, lavishly decorated for the season. A series of Christmas teas and open houses, many of them free, at various inns, plus special events such as Bingo With Santa, "A Dickens Feast" dinner theater, a Big Band dance, caroling on Christmas Eve, and a Posada procession through the Historic District fill the days of December. Click here for a schedule.
New Year's Eve parties are followed by the annual Bluegrass Festival on New Year’s Day. For a complete calendar of events, visit www.jekyllisland.com or call 877.4JEKYLL.
Lowcountry Christmas
Charleston, South Carolina celebrates in fine style throughout December each year. Highlights include a four-mile drive past a display of holiday lights and the world’s largest sandcastle on James Island (mid Nov.-early Jan.), oyster roasts, a parade of decorated boats, home tours, and Victorian teas. Visit www.christmasincharleston.com or call 800.774.0006.
St. Augustine Nights of Lights
Florida's oldest city, named "Best Tourist Town" in the South by FamilyFun magazine, celebrates the holidays with its Nights of Lights Festival with millions of lights festooning the historic district from late November to the end of January. During the festivities, you can carry a candle in the Grande Illumination or the Las Posadas processions celebrating the city’s British and Spanish heritage, visit the St. Augustine Lighthouse amid thousands of luminaries, and tour the homes of the World Golf Village decorated with a Nutcracker theme. For more information, visit www.visitoldcity.com or call 800.OLD-CITY.
-- by Renee Wright
Photo credits: Photos courtesy of Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Old Salem, the Carolina Inn, Jekyll Island Club, St. Augustine CVB
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