Tag: christmas

December is here, and that means it's time for all the Christmas kickoff events to happen all at once. There's quite a few, and if you're really quick you might be able to catch most of them.

* Carson City's Silver & Snowflakes Holiday Tree Lighting, Thursday the 3rd. That's tonight! This celebration takes place on the Capitol grounds as the state Christmas trees are lit, a choir performs, and Santa Claus makes an appearance. In past years Santa arrived on the back of a Model T, driven by a golden retriever named Beau. But since Both Beau and his trainer Bill Williamson passed away this year, Santa will arrive instead by horse-drawn carriage. After the lighting at the Capitol, everyone will walk over to the First Presbyterian Church to light the city Christmas tree.

* Minden Park Lighting, Friday the 4th. Santa arrives at 6pm at Minden Park to light the gazebo and the makeshift "christmas tree" they achieve by running lights up the flagpole.

* Genoa Tree Lighting, Friday the 4th. This one is simultaneous with Minden's, at 6pm, so you have to decide which town means more to you.

* South Lake Tahoe Community Tree Lighting, Friday the 4th. This will be held at the Visitors Center, 3066 Lake Tahoe Blvd, at 5pm. Santa Claus will be there, and sleigh and carriage rides will be available.

* Carson Valley Parade of Lights, Saturday the 5th. The parade leaves Lampe Park in Gardnerville at 5pm, and makes its way along Hwy 395 to downtown Minden. The parade units disperse after they reach Minden Park, but many of them hang out for a while so you can see them up close.

* The Virginia City Parade of Lights take place at the same time. Saturday the 5th, 5pm. This parade takes place on C Street through downtown Virginia City.

It's Christmas time, so that means it's time to bundle up, get in the car, and head out to the Carson Valley. The dancing lights at the Kremer house are back again this year. It's becoming tradition for me to write about this light display every year, just to introduce it to everyone who hasn't seen it and to remind those who already have.

The address is 1176 Chaparral Ct, off Stephanie Way in the Carson Valley. Click here for a Google map.

Their official website is www.nevadachristmas.com, where you can find hours, videos, and more information on how it works. Plus you can read the interview I did with Wayne Kremer in 2006. They're also again this year collecting food and money for the Carson Valley Community Food Closet, so if you come bring a can or two of non-perishable food or a few bucks for the mailbox. The lights run until New Year's, so you better get out there and watch them!

I've been doing a lot of driving around at night, trying to get a cranky baby to fall asleep. And since it's the right time of year, there is plenty to look at while I'm driving. Here's a litany of Christmas lights, all from the Saratoga Springs area of Johnson Lane.

The Governor's Mansion is looking very resplendent in its Christmas dress.

The Kremer Lights are back, and better than ever! Long-time readers may remember me writing about this light display in the Carson Valley back in 2005 and 2006. The Kremer family has put together one of the best Christmas light displays in the region. Not only is it an elaborate display, with a steel mega tree, several smaller trees, candy canes, cartoon dogs, and new this year an eight-foot wreath, but it's also all animated and set to music. They have a 20-minute show that runs continuously all night, and the lights dance and flash, choreographed in time with the music. And while this kind of thing is easy to do technically (with Light-O-Rama equipment), there is an artistry at work in the Kremer display that is sometimes lacking in other similar shows.

Here's a sample of one song from the 2005 show to give you a taste.

He took 2007 off, but promised to be back in 2008 with a new surprises. And he sure is. This year the new big thing is a video screen, right in the center of the giant wreath. For each of the songs in the show, he has created a music video that plays on the screen while the lights are dancing all around. Sometimes the video is a big part of the show, sometime it just fades into the background. But it's a fantastic addition to something that was already incredible.

Luckily the Kremers live on a cul-de-sac, so when the show is running their whole street turns into a drive-in movie theater. Cars are lined up side-by-side all the way across the street, sometimes two or three rows deep, to watch. Their neighbors probably have a nightmare trying to get out of their driveway, and backing out of there when you're ready to leave can be tricky without hitting anything, but having so many other cars there enhances the feeling that you're in a theater, with an audience, watching a performance. That's not something you usually get just looking at Christmas lights.

Now, the crowds are usually bad enough as it is, but I urge everyone reading this to set aside one night this month to drive out to Stephanie Way, in the Carson Valley, and see the lights. The house is in the Johnson Lane area, and the address is 1176 Chaparral Court. You can find directions here, or just look at the embedded map below.

Their official website is www.nevadachristmas.com, where you can find hours, videos, and more information on how it works. Plus you can read the interview I did with Wayne Kremer in 2006. They're also again this year collecting food and money for the Carson Valley Community Food Closet, so if you come bring a can or two of non-perishable food or a few bucks for the mailbox. The lights run until New Year's, so you better get out there and watch them!

Last night I went to the Carson City "Silver and Snowflake" Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the Capitol. There was quite a big crowd of people, filling up the lawn in front of the Capitol Building to watch the governor flip the switch and turn on the official state Christmas trees. Yes, there are two trees, because the big one is due to be retired one of these years.

Choir on the Capitol steps

The "new" state tree.

The festivities included music by the 5th grade choir, appearances by Miss Nevada, Governor Jim, Mayor Marv, and of course Santa Claus arriving in his Model T. His chauffeur for the evening was Beauregard the golden retriever.

Santa's Model T

Santa

Beauregard

Santa makes his getaway

After the ceremony at the Capitol, about 20% of the crowd headed over to the First Presbyterian Church for the lighting of the city Christmas tree. Mayor Marv made a few more remarks here, then lit the tree.

Mayor Marv

The city tree

And then, after that, what little entourage was left made its way down to the Nugget's West Parking Lot, which for the holidays has been rechristened Arlington Square. There the city's new ice rink held its opening night, and quite a crowd turned out to skate under the watchful eye of Cactus Jack's Senator. The Nevada Appeal has a story on the opening of the ice rink.

Arlington Square, former site of the Arlington Hotel.

The brand new ice rink

Skaters

In all it was a fun, if cold, night, and it really marks the start of the holiday season as now all of downtown is lit up. Here are few more pictures from around town last night.

The Capitol with the old tree on the right. This tree was planted by George W. G. Ferris, Sr in 1876, and in 1937 designated the state tree.

Frosty stands guard

Willow Bill's Reindeer

The base of the state tree, with the Capitol in the background.

City Hall gets in on the act.

Free buggy rides

To see more, stop by Flickr.

The Record Courier has a list of all the Christmas events that are coming up in the Carson Valley over the next couple of weeks, with the big ones being the lighting of the Gardnerville Christmas tree, Wednesday Dec 3rd at 5:30pm in Heritage Park, and the big Parade of Lights which travels from Lampe Park to downtown Minden along Hwy 395. That's Saturday night, Dec 6th, starting at 5:00pm.

And also remember the Carson City Christmas tree lighting, Thursday night, Dec 4th, on the Capitol grounds at 5:30pm.

In case you thought you had to wait until after Thanksgiving to put up Christmas decorations, don't sweat it. You can just follow the example of the Nevada Governor's Mansion, which seems to have taken down the Halloween decorations with the left hand while simultaneously putting up reindeer with the right.

And if you were worried that Thanksgiving had been skipped over entirely, don't be. There is a little tableau out by the street, where the "Gibbons Family" brings you apples and muskets and Technicolor turkeys.

The Christmas lights at the Governor's Mansion are burning brightly. But one wonders if the Governor will be turning off 4.5 percent of the lights.

Once again downtown Minden has been decorated for Christmas. The lights were switched on a couple of weeks ago, but it wasn't until just this week that I got down there to see them. And to take pictures, of course.

The CVIC Hall is always the centerpiece of Esmeralda Street, lit up from floor to ceiling.

Inside the CVIC Hall they have this window display, of Santa taking a load off during his nightly rounds.

The town "Christmas Tree" is actually the flagpole. But the gazebo is always done up nicely for the holidays.

There are so many lights here the gazebo is actually off-limits, roped off so you don't trip over the extension cords. This year it's fixed up to look like a carousel, with light-up horses placed around the outside.

Pictures can never compare to actually getting out and seeing the real thing, so I suggest you do just that. Many of the houses around the square are decorated too. Add in dinner at Barone and Reed or Francisco's, and you could make an evening of it.