As part of the original 13 colonies, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia reflect the colonial era in their Christmas celebrations. Christmas in Washington DC focuses on the nation’s celebration of Christmas.
Milford, Delaware
Milford sponsors The Holiday Stroll. Walk around downtown and enjoy the lights.
New Castle, Delaware
New Castle celebrates Dickens’s Christmas Carol. They dress in period garb and offer tours of historic homes. At the New Castle Court House Museum, you can visit Tompte, a legendary Swedish Elf. Join the Christmas concert and caroling at the New Castle United Methodist Church and go to the 1707 Meeting House to enjoy the Hand Bell Concerts.
Odessa, Delaware
Visit Odessa and enjoy the Candlelit Tours. See the businesses and houses decorated in colonial style.
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
Rehoboth Beach features the Apple Electric Illumination Christmas Light Show. Take a walk around the downtown and enjoy the lights there also. Then, visit the bandstand and the community Christmas tree.
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington offers the homes of several members of the du Pont family decorated for Christmas. Longwood Gardens and the Conservatory features lighted displays using 500,000 lights, holiday train displays, concerts, and the Open Air Theatre fountain. The Winterthur provides an interior view of a Colonial Christmas with a guided tour. Nemours provides a self-guided tour. Be sure to see the Nemours replica gingerbread house in the kitchen. The Hagley Museum and Library sponsors a gingerbread competition, cookie decorating, ornament trimming, and visits with Santa.
The Brandywine River Museum features an O-gauge train display, a Victorian dollhouse, and Christmas trees decorated with whimsical animal ornaments. The Delaware Museum of Natural History offers breakfast with Santa and craft stations. You can enjoy a production of A Christmas Carol in Market Square in good weather. In inclement weather, the performance moves indoors.
The Wilmington & Western Railroad offers 45-minute Christmas excursions through decorated neighborhoods. Some of the trips include visits with Santa. Residents along the route know the train schedule and step outside as it passes.
You can enjoy ice skating on the Riverfront Rink at the Constitution Yards beside the Christian River. Attend one of the holiday shows, such as the current production at the Delaware Children’s Theater or a puppet version of A Christmas Carol at the Delaware Theatre Company.
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis offers two community trees. You can view the one tree at the Town Center, where you can enjoy the Holiday Stroll with music and events such as a wreath-making workshop. You can view the other tree at the Annapolis City Dock, where you can shop and enjoy the local pubs. The Eastport Yacht Club sponsors a Lights Parade at the Annapolis Harbor. The Lights on the Bay display allows you to drive along the Chesapeake Bay and view lighted displays with Annapolis themes. You’ll see images of midshipmen tossing their hats, a Maryland blue crab, colonial Annapolis, the North Pole, and a sixteen-foot teddy bear. You can also enjoy the Chocolate Binge Festival and the nearby canopy of lights.
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore offers a full menu of events during the holiday season. The city hosts the Mayor’s Annual Christmas Parade traveling through the Hampden and Medfield neighborhoods. After the community Christmas tree lighting, you can enjoy the two-and-a-half-hour Annual Parade of Lighted Boats from Fells Point to Inner Harbor. The Miracle on 34th Street is a special event for the residents of Baltimore. The whole neighborhood lights up their homes. For an easy way to view the Miracle on 34th Street, Harbor East, and Inner Harbor, take a ride on the city’s trolley transformed into the Holly Jolly Trolley for the holidays.
Your family can enjoy breakfast with Santa at the B&O Railroad Museum, followed by a train ride on the One Mile Express. The museum features displays of toys and toy trains. You can also experience a lunch cruise with Santa on the Spirit of Baltimore on the Patapsco River and the Inner Harbor. Parents can choose gourmet food, while children select from a kids buffet. Back on land, you can enjoy the Rock the Dock Family Holiday Bash inside a heated tent. The Bash offers train rides on the Promenade, arts and crafts, cookie decorating, ornament making, face painting, and food. The Maryland Science Center hosts the 12 Days of Science with holiday-themed science activities.
For entertainment, visit Merriment & Melodies: A Holiday Choral Arts Series. It is an open-air concert featuring choral groups from the city and street entertainment such as acrobats and holiday characters. The food includes a Hot Chocolate Happy Hour. A Merry Tuba Christmas features 200 tuba and euphonium players. The German market, the Christmas Village at Inner Harbor, provides music and opportunities to buy gifts, sausages, gingerbread, and other food items. Your family can ice skate at the Pandora Ice Rink in Inner Harbor and the Dominic Mimi DiPietro Family Skating Center. Santa drops in at the Dominic for a special event. The holiday season in Baltimore ends with the lighting of the Washington Monument to celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year.
Chesterton, Maryland
Chesterton offers a Dickensesque weekend with decorated homes, carriage rides, live music, and street theater.
Oxon Hill, Maryland
In Oxon Hill, National Harbor features a community tree on the waterfront. The Gaylord National Hotel offers the LIT Light Show, recreations of Christmas movie scenes, and cookie and gingerbread house decorating. Ice skate, ride in ice bumper cars, and make and throw snowballs to help power the snowmaking machines at the Snow Factory.
St. Michaels, Maryland
Enjoy breakfast with or without Santa, lunch, and a holiday dinner during Christmas in St. Michaels. Watch the lighted boat parade, listen to holiday music, view the lights, and shop at the Marketplace and Sweet Shoppe. At the Marketplace, you will find unique gifts created by artisans. Join the Santa Dash, view the parade, and tour decorated homes.
Alexandria, Virginia
Olde Town Alexandria is the setting for a Christmas celebration with lights, garlands, red bows, and wreaths on the historic buildings. The colonial-style lamps wrapped in tartan ribbon add to the festive atmosphere. The brick sidewalks and cobblestone streets take you back in time. The waterfront views finish the greeting card scene.
Alexandria features the one-mile Holiday Boat Parade of Lights and the Scottish Christmas Walk Parade with a town crier, music, and Santa and Mrs. Claus. Viewers can enjoy food, beverages, and family activities. Enjoy the craft show featuring local artisans, a flea market, a European-style market, an Elves shop, a kid’s ornament-making workshop, ice skating, and A Christmas Carol production. At Fort Ward, you can explore a Revolutionary War encampment at Christmas and visit the Union Santa. Visit the Mansion Hotel and learn about its history as a hospital.
While in Alexandria, you can visit Mount Vernon, George Washington ‘s home, where you will meet Aladdin, the camel, and enjoy Christmas Illuminations and fireworks show. Aladdin represents the camel that George Washington had on display for his guests. You explore the house on a candlelight tour, where you will meet Martha Washington and other residents. A party follows with music, food, cider, and fireworks over the Potomac River.
The community finishes the holiday season with First Night Alexandria and fireworks over the Potomac River on New Year’s Eve.
Bedford, Virginia
Bedford celebrates with a parade, carriage rides, SantaLand, the Festival of Trees, the Centertown Tree Lighting, and lights at English Meadows-Elks Home Campus and Liberty Lake Park.
Charlottesville, Virginia
You can enjoy the Grand Illumination and the University of Virginia’s Lighting of the Lawn. Visit Montpelier, James Madison ‘s home, in Orange and Highland, James Monroe’s home, and watch the Wells Fargo Holiday Heritage Parade and the Barracks’ Annual Holiday Parade. Attend the special shows at the Paramount Theater. Finish the holiday season at First Night Virginia on New Year’s Eve.
Kilmarnock, Virginia
Kilmarnock celebrates Christmas by the Bay with a tree lighting ceremony, a lighted parade, Santa’s Village, lights at the park, and a Holiday Lighting Contest for residential homes and businesses. The Santa’s Village features six areas of the North Pole with activities and treats. Demonstrations include showing how to make toys. At the end of the tour, children can visit Santa, enjoy cocoa and cookies, and write a letter to Santa.
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond anchors one end of the 100 Miles of Lights, and Virginia Beach anchors the other end. In between Richmond and Virginia Beach, you can explore Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Williamsburg. These towns offer lighted boat parades, caroling, music, dance, and re-enactments.
Richmond celebrates an old-fashioned Christmas at Maymont Park, a giant gingerbread house at the Jefferson Hotel, a Tacky Lights Tour, and the Light Up the Tracks Celebration nearby in Ashland. The mile-long Light Up the Tracks Celebration features music performances and a gingerbread scavenger hunt. The Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens hosts the Gardenfest of Lights with model trains, s’mores, and hot chocolate.
Virginia Beach, Virginia
At Virginia Beach, you can travel the 100 Miles of Lights. You can also sail with Santa, view the lights on the beach, watch the daily parade, and enjoy the Hangar Concert at Military Aviation Museum. If you like marathons, you can watch or participate in the Surf-n-Santa 5 Miler and Rudolph’s 1 Mile runs. The marathon includes a fitness expo, a post-race party, and souvenirs.
Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg offers parades, colonial Christmas re-enactments, the Christmas Town at Busch Gardens, carriage rides, ice skating, and the Grand Illumination. You can stroll the streets of Colonial Williamsburg, enjoying a Fife and Drum Corps, the scent of over five miles of pine roping, and the warmth of the bonfires at night. You can view the traditional single candle in the windows of Williamsburg homes.
Washington DC
Christmas in Washington DC features the National Christmas Tree and the National Menorah in front of the White House. The National Christmas Tree is surrounded by 50 smaller trees representing the 50 states. You can view additional Christmas trees at the Capitol, inside the Library of Congress, and at CityCenterDC. You can also enjoy the lights at the Smithsonian National Zoo and Yards Park.
Visit Union Station to view the train display featuring hand-crafted Norwegian train replicas set among a Nordic landscape of mountains, fjords, and skiers. Shop at the German-style Dupont Circle Christkindlmarkt and enjoy holiday movies at The National Museum of American History. Explore the holiday exhibit at the U.S. Botanical Garden with replicas of landmark buildings decorated for Christmas.
Your family can enjoy ice skating at Fairmont Washington, The National Gallery of Art’s Sculpture Gardens, and Washington Harbor. Then, visit ICE at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. Gaylord creates ice sculptures featuring a nativity and four two-story ice slides.
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