Smoky Mountain Christmas at Dollywood and Pigeon Forge Gatlinburg Winterfest

A favorite southern destination year round, Dollywood at Pigeon Forge and the adjacent city of Gatlinburg -the Gateway to the Smokies- outdoes itself for the Christmas season. If you're looking for a bit of holiday magic, this is the place to come. Serving up vacation thrills and delights ever since the opening of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934, Gatlinburg -and Pigeon Forge- have created a name for themselves over the last twenty years when it comes to Christmas entertainment as well.

Dollywood itself has played a large role in revitalizing the tourist economy of the area, just as it revitalized the old amusement park from which it was born. In the 25 years since Dollywood became Dollywood, the Smoky Mountain theme park has become a leader amongst theme and amusement parks, winning many awards. The annual Smoky Mountain Christmas Festival at Dollywood even beats out Disney World's own Christmas events in recent years, and the trend towards excellence and innovation continues.

Don’t think it’s just Dollywood in on this Christmas celebration however. The whole area gets in on the fun! Pigeon Forge itself boasts well over five million lights in Christmas displays, there are over three million Christmas lights in the less sprawling Gatlinburg, and Sevierville’s getting in on the game as well. Dollywood’s in for an over four million lights Christmas show this year on its own, so with all those Christmas lights in the area, night-time will be much longed for, but darkness will never come. Just a constant display of cheerfulness, hope and goodwill, combined with the fun-loving friendliness Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg serve up all year long.

But it’s not just the Christmas lights that bring so many visitors to the Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge area every winter, despite the outstandingly over-the-top wonderfulness of these Smoky Mountain towns dripping in multi-colored happiness. It’s not just the breath-taking lights, or the parades, nor is it just the line-up of entertaining Christmas shows or the plethora of opportunities for world-class Christmas shopping, nor the ski runs and tubing hills of Ober Gatlinburg, or the many other venues offering indoor and outdoor amusement in the area.

Let's not forget the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with all the winter-time wonder it has to offer. If millions upon millions of twinkling colored lights are beautifully uplifting, the view from Clingman's Dome is heaven itself.

It’s that general Smoky Mountain magic of the area, culminating yearly in this winter-time rebellion against an end to it all. I don’t think there’s any other place on earth offering up so much of nature’s wonders and mankinds’ mis-utilizations of gravity in such a small area. In the Pigeon Forge Gatlinburg area year-round you can zip line, skydive, bungee jump, zorb, and in many other ways fly through the air, and it makes you wonder if all this free-spirited jumping and flying and gliding about has something more specific to do with the Smoky Mountain setting.

This is a place where anytime of the year you can leave behind the daily grind of life and actually live. Magically. What better place is there then on this earth to visit during the holidays than Winterfest in the Smokies?

In 2010, the winter festival all starts off the second week of November with consecutive official kick-offs of the festive winter season season. Dollywood reopens after a week's worth of redecorating on November 6th, and thus officially begins a Smoky Mountain Christmas.

On November 8th, the city of Sevierville opens Winterfest with a night of ‘Music, Lights and Magic’ in downtown Sevierville. Here you’ll find plenty of free food and entertainment, including the turning on of the lights. Be sure to pick up your complimentary pair of 3D glasses at the Sevierville Visitor Center. These special glasses turn the Christmas light displays into visions of sparkling snowflakes.

Moving down the road a bit each night, on November 9th we have the Pigeon Forge Winterfest Kick-off at Patriot Park, followed the next evening in Gatlinburg with their annual Chili Cookoff and Winter Magic Kickoff. Look for live entertainment, childrens’ games, great food, fun and fireworks and millions and millions of twinkling Christmas lights, and you will not be disappointed.

Trolleys begin running their Christmas routes on the 10th of November in both Pigeon Forge and in Gatlinburg. Climb on board for a guided ‘Trolley Tour of Lights’ in Pigeon Forge, or the ‘Winterfest Trolley’ tour of Gatlinburg. Both offer up visions of Christmas light displays as seen nowhere else. And if a few snow flurries fall during your night-time ride, don't worry. The trolleys are fully enclosed and temperature controlled, so a bit of snow only makes it all that much more perfect!

If driving your own vehicle is more your thing, be sure to drive through the new Shadrack’s Christmas Wonderland at the Stadium of the Smokies in Sevierville. This mile-long 25 minute ride is a synchronized LED light and sound show guaranteed to leave your family filled with Christmas spirit. Admission is $13.67 per family vehicle, $18.23 on weekends. There's also a free Petting Zoo at Shadrack's Christmas Wonderland, Santa's Workshop, and pony and camel rides.

If you don't mind lodging in Sevierville, a stay at the next-door Hampton Inn & Suites can get you a lovely Christmas Wonderland view. This will bring a spectacular night-time ambience to your December vacation. Be sure to ask for a room on the stadium side!

Brought to you by the Smoky Mountain Area Rescue Ministries is the annual Gatlinburg Festival of Trees. Admission is free, Smoky Mountain crafts, gifts and décor is for sale, along with Smoky Mountain food, and all proceeds go directly to the Rescue. This is a fun event for children as well. The dozens and dozens of trees all differently trimmed will awe them, trying on gift-box costumes will amuse them and meeting Santa Claus in person will thrill them! The Gatlinburg Festival of Trees runs this year from November 23^rd through the 27^th at the W.L. Mills Convention Center, and is open daily, including Thanksgiving day. Pictures with Santa will be available on Friday and Saturday.

Then there’s the Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair put on by the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community. This special event features the work of native craftsmen on the Tennessee Heritage Arts and Crafts Trail. Here you’ll find hand-thrown pottery, quilts, weavers and whittlers, carvers and candle-makers and more. Plenty of treasures to fill out your Christmas Gift list.

These craftsmen sell their handmade wares year round in small shops along the eight-mile Arts and Crafts Heritage Trail, but gather together once a year to bring all their Holiday best to you. Again at the Gatlinburg Convention Center, November 29th through December 5th.

December 4th is parade day. Santa visits Sevierville during the 48th annual daytime parade, an old-fashioned hometown parade featuring floats, beauty queens and the arrival of the big man himself. Then bundle up for the 35th annual night-time Gatlinburg Fantasy of Lights Christmas Parade that very same evening, cause that's where Santa is headed next.

Don’t forget the nightly Christmas Parade of Lights at Dollywood, nor their many Christmas shows and attractions. We haven’t even come to the December 7th Pigeon Forge tree-lighting ceremony yet. Nor have I mentioned all the great shows in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, the tons of shopping and loads of other attractions still open for business throughout the area and planning special sales and surprises for the season.

I wouldn’t even know where to start! As always, this corner of the Smoky Mountains is overflowing with fun things to do, and the winter season is no exception. Sure, the whitewater rafting and river tubing places are closed, as is Splash Country -and Dollywood itself after New Year’s. But the ski slopes are open, and snow tubing is more fun than river tubing! Ice skating is more fun on a mountain top and the natural beauty of the area takes on a whole different feel and look during the winter months.

Winterfest doesn’t end with the holidays either. The fun just continues –all the way into March. The old year is laid to rest with the blow-out celebration of the Gatlinburg Ball Drop and Street Party, and the new year is promptly rolled out. Wilderness Wildlife Week quickly commences, this year followed up by a world-class ice sculpture event at the new Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge. But Winterfest continues through February and into March with the 11th annual SaddleUp cowboy celebration and the 17th annual Mountain Quilt-fest.

Yes. Water rides aren’t so good in Tennessee this time of year, unless of course you visit the Wild Water Dome indoor water park in Sevierville, but the Pigeon Forge Gatlinburg area is far from closed down. The Great Smoky Mountains are wide open, and millions of tiny twinkling lights have been left on in Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg to guide the way through to the new year. 

• Christmas Gifts for Mom in 2010
• The Neato Robotic Vacuum
• The Roomba Robot Vacuum
• Scooba the Floor Scrubber
• Diamond Snowflake Necklace
• The BEST iPad Folio Case – The AYL iPad case
• Christmas Gift Baskets
• Dog Clothing for Christmas
• Smoky Mountain Christmas
• Christmas Tree Decorating with Collectibles