Mile-long parades of lights that pass out holiday cheer as they wind along city streets are a glorious sight. But consider some of the glowing grassroots goings-on that spread the spirit of the season around our state:
An enormous Christmas tree planted in a key Grand Lake intersection. Boat rides with Santa down a lighted stretch of the Arkansas River in Pueblo. Some 200,000 twinkling lights glittering in the courtyard of the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs. Huge decorations glowing atop long-abandoned gold mines in Victor and Cripple Creek.
This is but a sampling, but it seems like Colorado’s small-town celebrations give the bright lights of the big city a run for their money. – Dana Coffield
Gold Camp Christmas
Where: Victor and Cripple Creek
Every December since 1998, huge lighted decorations have twinkled from the top of abandoned gold-mine structures that dot the hills of southern Teller County.
What started as a Cripple Creek marketing effort supported by Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Co. has evolved into an all-volunteer project funded mostly by the mine. All summer long, men and women handy with paintbrushes and welding gear spiff up the giant homemade stars and snowflakes, candles and doves, fitting the shapes with new lights and preparing for a day in the fall when three mine employees shimmy up the hulking headframes to hang their friends’ work.
“Those guys are our biggest elves,” says Ruth Zalewski, a Victor photographer and Gold Camp Christmas volunteer, who marvels at their willingness to scale structures that date to the late 1800s, just so people in town won’t be disappointed.
“One year, we talked about not doing it and got so much grief,” she says. “It’s become a tradition. For those of us who volunteer on it, it gets you in the Christmas spirit. It’s really fun, and it’s something the community enjoys.”
The headframes are lighted Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at dusk until Christmas Eve, and then every night through New Year’s Eve. New this year is a big smiling Santa Claus on the south side of Colorado 67, near the entrance to the mine mill west of Victor.
Visitors can get Gold Camp Christmas maps at the Victor Hotel, or online at victorcolorado.com.
Better yet, head up to Victor on Friday for a bonfire and caroling at 6 p.m. at the Gold Bowl near the Cresson mine – it’s easy to spot because the head frame is outlined in rope lights – near the east side of town.
Then at 7:30 p.m. catch a shuttle at the Victor Community Center, at Portland Avenue and Second Street, and treat yourself to a guided tour of the 15 twinkling tributes along a loop that runs from Victor to Cripple Creek and back.
Plan to stay for Saturday, when holiday activities include a parade down Bennett Avenue in Cripple Creek at noon and a carol concert at 2 p.m. at the Butte Opera House.
Boat rides down the Arkansas River
Where: Pueblo’s Riverwalk District
Pueblo knows how to do the holidays. Where else in Colorado can you float in a boat with Santa, snuggled into warm blankets with a cup of hot cocoa?
After you’ve whispered your secret wishes to the big guy, settle in and enjoy the glow of the more than 100,000 white lights woven into displays built by seven of Pueblo’s nonprofit groups. “It’s their way of giving thanks to the community,” says Niki Toussaint, who coordinates special events for the Historic Arkansas River of Pueblo Authority.
On Toussaint’s must-see list this year: the snowman village created by Colorado Blue Sky Enterprises, which works with people who are developmentally disabled. “They made snowmen out of huge logs. It’s really neat.”
Supporter Xcel Energy has lighted the Riverwalk’s outdoor amphitheater with what feels like miles of icicle lights. The glowing structure shelters a huge inflatable snow globe. If the river authority’s luck holds out, by the time the weekend rolls around, it’ll have its own huge display in place – a 21-foot-tall tree with an animatronic beaver running around its base, paying tribute to a Bandit, a brave live beaver that attempted to homestead the Riverwalk channel in December 1999 and gnawed down 17 freshly planted trees in a matter of days. (Bandit was relocated, without incident, to a less urban setting.)
Santa’s boat revs up about 5 p.m. and runs until 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights until Dec. 16, when it runs nightly through Dec. 23. Kids ride for free, adults pay $5. Carolers will wander the banks of the Arkansas from 6-7 p.m. Friday and again from 7-8 p.m. Dec. 16.
Make it a day in Steel City by adding a trip to the historic Rosemount Museum. Every room in the 25,000-square-foot mansion in the center of town is trimmed in Victorian finery by volunteers. The decorations hark back to the grand but natural holiday style favored by members of pioneer merchant-banker John Thatcher’s family when they lived there. The treat of the season is a look at the vast dining room, which is decorated each year by a different member of the Thatcher family.
Calendar still not filled? The Sangre de Cristo Arts Center’s ballet company presents the “Nutcracker” in evening shows Friday and Saturday and in matinees on Saturday and Dec. 11. “The little ballerinas from grade school through high school and college age, they do a beautiful job of the ‘Nutcracker,”‘ says river authority executive director Steve Arveschoug.
Miles and miles of lights
Where: Hotel Colorado, Glenwood Springs
Folks at the Hotel Colorado have been doing some calculating: 2,000 strands of lights, 4 1/2 miles of wire, 200,000 twinkling bulbs glowing inside and outside the historic inn.
The place is decked out from door to door. Feel free to wander around, says hotel spokeswoman Vicky Nash. “The animated displays are probably the best in western Colorado,” she says. “They have skiing polar bears and dancing penguins, Santa’s workshop and a little miniature alpine village and train called the Polar Express. It reminds me of the Marshall Fields store windows on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.”
You can warm up with a cup of cocoa or a Polar Express latte in the Legends Trading Post cafe.
“Another cool thing the hotel does are the holiday Victorian teas,” Nash says. Tea is served Sundays, today through Dec. 18.
If sipping from Styrofoam is more your style, a trip to Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park is in order. We can’t think of another Colorado amusement park that stays open in the chill winter. Nash says the big thrill is a trip down the Canyon Flyer. “It’s like a combination of a luge track and a roller coaster. They didn’t remove a tree when they built that thing, so you can imagine how twisty it is.”
In the kinder, gentler department, the park also has scheduled the jolly old elf noon-3 p.m. Saturday and Dec. 11 at the top of the tram.
Holidays in the mountain groove
Where: Grand County towns
The streets in Grand Lake are wide. Very, very wide. But there have been years when the lighted Christmas tree planted smack in the middle of Grand Avenue has been so large that Gaylene Ore has had to make a wide curve to keep from dinging some of the yuletide wonder off the branches.
“It’s not as big as the one in Rockefeller Plaza, but it’s big,” she says with a laugh. “It’s so festive in Grand Lake over the holidays.”
It’s a low-key brand of special, though. You can take a sleigh ride or, the week of Christmas, skate at the town rink. Or use the full-on Western-style town as a home base for a few days of cross-country skiing or snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park or for exploring other Grand County attractions.
The season really gets going at 5:30 p.m. Friday in Granby, with the annual tree-lighting and parade of lights (yes, St. Nick will be there too), which also celebrates the town’s 100th birthday. A free chili supper follows at the Granby Community Center at about 6 p.m.
On Saturday, Santa heads to Grand Lake, where he’ll have breakfast with kids at 8 a.m. at the Bear’s Den Restaurant. At about 10, he’ll head to Town Park and climb on a firetruck for a ride. Then at 6:30 p.m. the town’s Christmas Music Festival gets going at St. Anne’s Church.
Whoa! It’s not all over yet. After the church music, there will be candlelight caroling through town.
One more thing. If you’re still looking for a place to cut your own tree, you can get a permit for the Arapaho National Forest at the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce through Dec. 24. Go today or next weekend and Smokey Bear will be hanging out at the Rudolph parking area for photo ops. Visit for details.
