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12 Days of Christmas

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Partridges and pear trees need not apply: These 12 holiday destinations around Southern Appalachia offer mountain merry- makers a bit of everything—from homespun traditions to festive glamour and glitz.

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12 Reenactors Feasting

Witness the Christmas traditions of yesteryear when you pass through the gates of Fort Watauga for Old Christmas. A frontier outpost during colonial times, the reconstructed Revolutionary War fort comes to life with period reenactors. Colonial Christmas traditions practiced by early settlers unfold in the fort’s cabins, and militia men stage drills and living-history demonstrations on the grounds.

The historic jollification is held in early January, paying tribute to the original 12 Days of Christmas practiced by our ancestors. Starting on Christmas, 12 days of feasting and rejoicing crescendoed to a grand finale celebration—the origin of the famous song.

Reenactors share the origin of various customs, like English Christmas Guns, the Irish Holly Wreath, the German Tannenbaum, Scottish First Footing, and the Dutch Sinterklaas.

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11 Miners Mining

Cross a lump of coal off your Christmas list with a journey into a real mine during Appalachian Coal Town Christmas. Life wasn’t lavish in coal towns, but a stroll through this century-old replica of a mining village in Beckley, West Virginia, will leave you with a bittersweet hankering for humbler times. 

“It wasn’t until after the Second World War that we began this march toward materialism, and it became about how much you got,” says Leslie Baker, director of the historic site. “Back then, it was more about shared experiences.”

Lights and greenery grace the camp, from the tiny miner’s shanty to the stately superintendent’s quarters and schoolhouse.

“We have a collection of buildings that lend themselves to decorating, and people on staff who just really love Christmas,” Baker says, recalling the origin story behind Coal Town Christmas over a decade ago.

Horse-drawn carriage rides, a marshmallow roast, and a make-and-take ornament add to the merriment. But the real high note is communal caroling in the village church, with a mug of cider in one hand and songbook in the other. The low point, technically speaking, is a quarter-mile trip below ground in an authentic miner’s cart with a veteran miner as your conductor.

Dig even deeper into coal heritage with a gander through the miner’s museum and unearth one-of-a-kind Christmas gifts in the refurbished company store, where coal jewelry and figurines offer a clever rendition of the infamous stocking stuffer. Round out the night with a short planetarium show and on-site Youth Museum fashioned from old railway boxcars.

10 Trees A-chopping

Hidden among the high-altitude forests of the Smoky Mountains, Tom Sawyer’s Tree Farm is a one-chop stop for holiday revelry.

After all, a pilgrimage to fetch a Christmas tree down from the mountains is an all-day excursion for most folks. “By the time they get here, the kids have been in the car for two hours and are so excited they’re running all over the place,” says Tom Sawyer, patriarch of the family-run operation. “It is an adventure. You get the tree, but it’s about the adventure.”

So that’s what Sawyer delivers. Beneath the groves of his choose-and-cut tree farm in Glenville, North Carolina, lies the only known elf village in the contiguous 48.

After a jolly jaunt to pick a tree, families are free to roam the elfish abodes—including a Christmas storytelling house, a craft cottage with make-and-take ornaments, and Santa’s hut with St. Nick himself. Kids who really want to drive their message home can write letters to the North Pole and mail them on the spot from a tiny elf post office.

Sawyer encountered a slight hitch during the early incarnation of his ingenious vision. “I thought, ‘Where am I going to find elf workers?’” Sawyer recalls. “So we decided to make elf outfits and give them to the children when they come in: They would be our elves.”

The grown-ups were roped in for good measure. “Everyone who comes into the elf village, adults and children, all have elf outfits on,” says Sawyer, whose wardrobe of elf smocks and caps runs 200 strong. 

The immersion experience at Tom Sawyer’s even involves giving families a go at cutting their own tree with a handsaw. “A lot of families just want to try it, but eventually they come find one of our guys with the chainsaw,” Sawyer says.

There’s also a bonfire for roasting marshmallows, horse-drawn carriage rides, wagon rides pulled by an antique tractor, and a kid’s scavenger hunt. It takes 60 staff to man the operation on peak weekends.

“People rarely come just once. Once they come, it’s a tradition,” Sawyer says.

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9 Yule Logs Burning

Glimpse Christmas as your great-great-great grandparents knew it. From the clink of a blacksmith hammer to the whir of a spinning wheel, reenactments at the Exchange Place in Kingsport, Tennessee, bring early America to life during Christmas in the Country.

With seven original buildings dating to the 1830s and 1840s, the Exchange Place is the oldest surviving pioneer homestead in the region. Throughout the day, a Christmas meal is cooked over an open hearth following the recipes and techniques of yesteryear, from home-grown ingredients to authentic kitchen tools.

“It is a very hard job to do open-hearth cooking correctly—to be in front of the fire and cook it in an historical way,” says Heather Gilreath, a demonstrator with Eden’s Ridge Hearth Cookery Society. “It is very hot. The cast iron is very heavy. It takes a lot of prep.”

Preparing a true farm-to-table meal over an open hearth is nearly a lost art, but Gilreath lucked into a handwritten cookbook passed down by the original family who lived at Exchange Place. Plum pudding, cinnamon waffles, meat pie, salsify fritters, apple pudding baked in a pumpkin shell, and cookies in the shape of a sassafras leaf are among the kitchen concoctions to grace the Christmas table here.

A host of traditional crafters peddle their wares on the grounds, with Christmas wreaths and greenery selling like hotcakes. The day is capped off with a Yule log ceremony, a Nordic ritual traced to winter solstice celebrations during medieval times. A symbol of rebirth and renewal, the pagan Yule log was later wrapped into Christmas and widely practiced in early America.

Visitors who gather around the blazing Yule log can toss a sprig of holly on the fire to cast off the burdens of last year. After a few rounds of Christmas carols, a steaming cauldron of wassail is ladled out by the open-hearth cookers.

“We gather around the fire and toast to the health of a new year,” says Marshall Adesman, a volunteer docent at the Exchange Place.

Traditionally, ashes from the Yule log were sprinkled on the fields for fertility, and visitors can take home a scoop of the ashes as a token of good luck for the new year.

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8 Silver Trees Shining

The aluminum Christmas tree capital of the world: It’s a slogan some would rather not own, but Brevard, North Carolina, is gradually embracing its fate.

“We’re famous,” Pat Childress says with a wry laugh. Childress, the culprit behind Brevard’s infamous claim, is the curator of the gaudy holiday exhibit now in its sixth year at the Transylvania Heritage Museum.

“You can’t walk through without smiling,” Childress says. “Some people you can hear from one room to the next just cackling.”

The team of decorators call themselves a society, but gaining acceptance to the group isn’t hard. “Anyone can volunteer to adopt a tree to decorate,” Childress says. “And they do—because a lot of people are crazy like me.”

Forget the crocheted angels and ornament balls, though. The exhibit’s official name—the Aluminum Tree and Aesthetically Challenged Seasonal Ornament Museum and Research Center—is not to be taken lightly. Crazy, zany, silly, funny, wacky, weird, wild, and downright ridiculous is the name of the game here.

The curators are not just aesthetically challenged—they are becoming space challenged as well. The collection is a magnet for more of its kind, now pushing three dozen.

 “Every year, at least one person says ‘I have one in my attic, will you take it?’” Childress says.

In fact, the inherent snowball effect is how the collection got started in the first place. After getting an aluminum tree as a gag gift one year, a local man fell prey to a standing joke, with more friends following suit each year. 

“It eventually got too large for him. When he decided to liquidate his collection, we were in the right place at the right time,” Childress says.

It might seem like an odd niche for a heritage museum in the Appalachians, but Childress thinks it’s fitting.  The region is known for its environmental stewardship, and ATOM has pitched right in by preserving the “distant cousin of our forest trees,” not to mention a nod to sustainability.

“It is a historic collection at this point,” Childress says.

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7 Historic Inns Welcoming

Sample a taste of the season on the Holiday Tour of Historic Inns and Cookie Caper—a homage to heritage, a muse for your own décor, and a tribute to holiday desserts.

“At each inn, there is a cookie. I use that term loosely because it can be different goodies,” says Emily Sisler, with the Hendersonville Historic Preservation Commission, which puts on the tour each year. “We offer to provide the cookies but nobody has ever taken us up on that. In the past the inn owners have gotten a little competitive and are all trying to have the best cookies.”

The tour offers a rare public viewing of Hendersonville’s stately inns on a self-guided circuit, but beware of inn envy. “They do it up to the nines,” Sisler says.

The inn tour is one of many Christmas hats Hendersonville wears in December. Donning the tagline Home for the Holidays, Hendersonville becomes a hub of comfort and joy.

“Holidays are all about family, and we wanted people to feel like they are coming home to a Christmas memory place,” says Beth Carden, director of Henderson County Tourism.

Every weekend in December, downtown is transformed into a vibrant Christmas card, with caroling, carriage rides, Santa, an iceless skating rink, and s’mores. Throughout the month, visitors can take in a hometown parade, gingerbread house contest, Christmas craft show, live nativity scene, and holiday concerts—orchestra, band, and choral.

“There is nothing more inviting than a mountain experience for Christmas,” Carden says. “It is all about going somewhere and being excited about the memories you are going to create while you are there.”

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6 Merchants Merry-Making

Christmas comes to Main Street during the hometown Winter Wonderland celebration in the mountain hamlet of Franklin, North Carolina.

The town’s merry merchants set the stage for the Rockwell-esque holiday affair by decking the halls of their store windows with live Christmas scenes. Shop owners take pride in fashioning vignettes and recruiting townsfolk for their window cameo.

“We never really know what to expect, whether it’s a kid around a Christmas tree with a toy train, a nativity scene, or musicians playing Christmas carols,” says Tony Angel, the special events coordinator for the town of Franklin. “One year we had six-foot-tall elves running around a tree placing presents.”

The clop of horse-drawn wagon rides, the smell of steaming cider served by shop keepers, and the glow of sidewalk luminaries fill the quaint downtown with the sights and sounds of Christmas. And the festivities wouldn’t be complete without a sighting of the jolly old elf himself. 

“Santa is up and down the street meeting with the kids and asking them if they’ve been bad or good,” Angel says.

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5 Bavarians Shopping

Experience Christmas in the Alps without leaving the Appalachians. The Bavarian backdrop of Alpine Helen, Georgia, serves up a picturesque holiday on high.

“When you come over the mountain into Alpine Helen, it is just like you have taken a turn and are in Germany. It looks like a winter candyland when we have our lights on for the holidays,” says Jerry Brown, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The town is alive with holiday festivities from the day after Thanksgiving, when Santa rings in the season with the ceremonial lighting of the town, to the Dropping of the Edelwiess on New Year’s Eve.

The Christkindlmarkt, a shopping and food bazaar in the German tradition, puts the joy back in holiday shopping. Or stock up on gifts with an authentic ring at the Mistletoe Market, a Christmas arts and crafts fair held by the Alpine Helen Arts & Heritage Center.

Pack in an afternoon of downtown shopping for gifts with a German flair, sample pastries, tour one of the many area wineries, or raise a stein to the most wonderful time of the year.

You can even take home a full-loaded Christmas tree from the annual Festival of Trees auction. Trees decorated by local businesses and community members are on display for viewing and bidding, with funds supporting the needy through United Way.

y What: A Bavarian-themed holiday.

y Where: Alpine Helen, Georgia.

y When: Events Alpine Mistletoe Market November 29; Christkindlmarkt December 3-4 and 10-11; downtown parade December 10; Festival of Trees on display through December 10.

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4 Lights A-twinkling

Winterfest warms the soul with a melting pot of shopping, dining, attractions, and lights, serving up an all-in-one escape when the mountains come calling at Christmas.

“When the weather turns crisp, you just want to get away to the mountains. It just feels like the holidays,” says Amanda Maples Marr, marketing director for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce. 

The Christmas lights that set Sevierville, Tennessee, aglow go beyond the classic snowflakes and lamppost strings. Massive light displays festoon the main drags and evoke the Smokies’ unique sense of place—think bears catching trout, a leaping deer, or Old Man winter blowing snow in. The Sevierville Visitor Center even sells 3-D glasses for a buck to enhance holiday light viewing. To keep the Christmas cheer rolling all winter, Sevierville leaves its lights up through February.

Winterfest is a theme that captures the full gamut of a holiday retreat to the Tennessee Smokies. Sevierville’s sister destinations of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge hitch their sleighs to the Winterfest campaign, as well, a marketing message the trio has been telling on the mountain for more than 25 years.

Renting a cabin or chalet—think gas fireplace, hot tub, and game room—lets extended families stay together without invading someone’s home.

Christmas attractions abound, from swimming with Santa at Wilderness in the Smokies waterpark to Shadrack’s Christmas Wonderland, a 1.5-mile synchronized light and music holiday show.

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3 Plays Encoring

Nothing sets the stage for Christmas quite like the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia. With three shows in play during the holiday season, the repertoire charms audiences with a classic Christmas tale, a Christmas comedy, and a Christmas performance for children.

“Whatever you like for Christmas, we pretty much have it,” says Richard Rose, the artistic director for Barter Theater.

The plays feature staggered show times—with five performances a day running concurrently on two stages—making it easy to see all three during a holiday getaway to the historic town of Abingdon.

The season’s headliner is always a traditional Christmas story, and this year it’s Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. 

“It is fun and theatrical and unique. Even if you have seen it before you will see something different, some new twist on it,” Rose says.

The year’s comedy, Over the River and Through the Woods, isn’t set specifically during Christmas, but is a rollicking and heartwarming romp about the love of family. “It started selling the minute we announced it last October,” Rose says.

The historic playhouse, the longest-running professional theatre in the country dating to 1933, is famous for its top-notch productions and is a darling of theater critics. More than 160,000 make a pilgrimage to the Barter Theater every year. But the holiday season is the most popular, with 40,000 theatergoers during the five-week Christmas run. 

“We have become a Christmas destination,” Rose says. Something about the holidays lures people to the theater—not just as a pretext to show off your satin Christmas dress or favorite Santa tie. 

“Christmas is really a bonding experience with your fellow human beings,” Rose says. “Theater captures the essence of that holiday spirit. Families bond and do something collectively they will all talk about and enjoy.”

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2 Trains Choo-chooing

Get Christmas off on the right track with a ride on the Santa Express. This holiday adventure wraps the magic of Santa and the mystique of a train ride into a single package, courtesy of the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway, stationed in the quaint town of Blue Ridge, Georgia.

The one-hour Santa Express ride evokes all the right touchstones of a child’s Christmas. There are candy canes and caroling, hot chocolate and ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, appearances by the Grinch and Rudolph, and, of course, Santa himself with the lovely Mrs. Claus at his side. Children each get face time with Santa to impart their Christmas lists as he moves through the cars. 

Looking for a longer journey? The Santa Pavilion train is a four-hour trip with a layover at a Christmas Pavilion for pictures with Santa.

Every passenger gets a commemorative bell—a great tree ornament back home.

“Some riders come every Christmas and have been collecting the bells for years,” says Rachel Gray, the ticket office manager at Blue Ridge Scenic Railway. “We have people come from all over the place. You name it, we’ve had them come.”

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1 And a Giant Tree in a Grand Hall

No one does Christmas like the Biltmore Estate. The grand manor in Asheville, North Carolina, tops the chart of America’s greatest holiday destinations.

“Our guests say it’s impossible to not be moved by the infectious cheer spread by the holiday show here at Biltmore,” says Marissa Jamison, a spokesperson for the Biltmore Estate. “Every nook and cranny is decked out for the holidays.”

This year’s Christmas theme at Biltmore is Hearth and Home, a telling testament to tradition. Biltmore’s immense hearths evoke warmth and hospitality, traits passed down at the estate since 1895 when George Vanderbilt opened his home to family and friends for the first time on Christmas Eve.

The Biltmore Estate has been enchanting guests during this special time of year ever since, topping 300,000 visitors during the Christmas season.

Planning begins a year in advance. By December, the in-house design team has jockeyed for dibs on which rooms they’ll each do the following year. Over the coming months, motifs are critiqued, sketches refined, color schemes polished, and material orders finalized. By October, the transformation toward Christmas is underway. The estate’s lead designer has earned the nickname Mother Christmas. “She thinks of something to do with Christmas every day of the year,” Jamison says. 

The lavish, grand décor that drapes the home—there are miles of garlands alone—isn’t feasible to replicate, but an ‘ah-hah’ moment is common.

“Visitors may see the way a mantel is decorated and gain inspiration for their own home from that,” Jamison says.

Dozens of Christmas trees fill the Biltmore House. The crown jewel of them all—a 35-foot tall giant weighing several tons—is delivered on a horse-drawn carriage and ceremonially hoisted to its place of honor at the head of the great Banquet Hall.

Christmas is the only season where guests can partake in an evening candlelight tour of the home, with blazing fireplaces, hundreds of luminaries, and live Christmas music. 

Other festivities on estate grounds during the holiday season include free holiday craft seminars on topics such as wreaths and tabletop topiaries; visits with Santa; and the release of Biltmore’s special Christmas wine with a commemorative label by a commissioned artist.

Twinkle, Twinkle: Holiday light displays make spirits bright

Each year for Enchanted Garden of Lights, the hillside gardens of Rock City are transformed into a nocturnal fantasyland with more than 30 holiday scenes. Explore the magical lighted scenes along the walking paths winding through Rock City’s unique geological wonders. Activities include a visit with Santa, cookie decorating, live music, and more. Rock City Gardens, Chattanooga, Tennessee. 6-9 p.m. nightly, November 18-December 31. seerockcity.com.

At Bristol Speedway in Lights, two million lights illuminate a mesmerizing five-mile route, making it the largest light display in the South. Tour from your own vehicle, guided tram, or Polar Express-themed school bus. On-site activities include a real ice-skating rink, Christmas Village, and more. Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, Tennessee. Nightly from November 18–January 7. speedwayinlights.org.

An engineering feat and holiday marvel, the Shadrack’s Christmas Wonderland is a larger-than-life light show synchronized to music. As you drive through the towering displays, the choreographed lights leap and dance to holiday music playing over your car radio. Shadrack’s brings its jaw-dropping show to East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and Upstate South Carolina. WNC Agriculture Center in Asheville, North Carolina; Tennessee Smokies Baseball Stadium in Sevierville, Tennessee; Heritage Park Amphitheater in Simpsonville, South Carolina. Nightly from Thanksgiving through early January. shadrackchristmas.com.

During Winter Lights, the N.C. Arboretum’s creative landscapes spring to life after dark with 500,000 lights. Stroll three acres of winding paths and soak up the magic of the Arboretum lights interwoven with the artistic garden designs, along with animated light sculptures set to music. Then warm up with s’mores and hot chocolate. N.C. Arboretum, Asheville, North Carolina. 6-10 p.m. November 18-January 1. ncarboretum.org/exhibits-events/winter-lights.

Mountain Country Christmas in Lights is more than a light display. This new event brings the community together in a celebration of Christmas spirit with music by local churches, art and craft vendors, holiday food, a visit with Santa, and hot chocolate and s’mores. Georgia Mountain Fairgrounds in Hiawassee, Georgia. 6-10 p.m. Thursday-Sunday from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. georgiamountainfairgrounds.com.

Roper Mountain Holiday Lights is a perennial holiday favorite for families in Upstate South Carolina. A 1.5-mile drive weaves past large light displays and sculptures—from Candy Cane Lane to a giant Caterpillar. Stroll the lighted walkways of Winter Wonderland village, with holiday performers, Santa Claus, concessions, and giant holiday greeting cards created by local students. Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville, South Carolina. 6-10 p.m. nightly from Thanksgiving to December 30. ropermountainholidaylights.com.

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