Downtown Oklahoma City celebrates the holiday season with variety
Some of the most beloved holiday standards of all time — from “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” to “Sleigh Ride,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” — have something in common besides their seasonal settings.
They were all written in what could be considered the golden age for Christmas songs: the 1940s. And it’s no coincidence that local music group The City Cabaret OKC sets its “Retro Wonderland” yuletide concerts in that same era.
“Last year, we decided that we kind of needed a niche, so we sat down and … we thought, ‘You know what, this will be a good idea: We’ll do a jazz club kind of thing, and sure enough, we sold out and added a night. So, this has become our thing,” said The City Cabaret OKC Artistic Director Cristela Carrizales.
“The classic standards of Christmas are really great. Every time I think about Christmas, I think about like Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole, so most of the music I listen to is from that era. I also think that people are just really nostalgic when it comes to Christmastime. There’s this idea of like an easier, simpler time — obviously, that may or may not be true — but I think people just get really nostalgic and they want a different experience, opposed to something they get all the time. We were surprised by how much reaction we got to the show. We didn’t expect it, so it was great to get that.”
From a 1940s jazz club Christmas show and a banjo-playing Santa, to canine Christmas parties and a stand of Native American Christmas trees, downtown Oklahoma City turns into a kind of yuletide variety show during the holidays. In fact, with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic’s “The Christmas Show,” the eclectic list of yuletide festivities includes an old-school variety show as seen on TV.
“I grew up with ‘The Carol Burnett Show,’ so I’ve always tried to pattern our show after that.
… It went from pops and classics to Broadway each and every week,” said Lyn Cramer, longtime director of the OKC Philharmonic’s “The Christmas Show.” “We pride ourselves in something for everyone.”
Seasonal staples
The same yuletide philosophy applies to Downtown in December, a series of holiday events presented by Devon Energy and coordinated and produced in part by the Downtown Oklahoma City Partnership staff, in collaboration with other organizations and attractions.
Now in its 16th year, Downtown in December has burgeoned to more than 30 events now ranging across the heart of OKC, from Film Row to Automobile Alley and Bricktown to Midtown. As downtown has flourished, so has its slate of seasonal celebrations.
“We’re involved with every event in some way, even if it’s just promotion,” said Riley Cole, events coordinator for the Downtown Oklahoma City Partnership. “We like to call it a winter
experience that encompasses outdoor ice skating, the tree lighting festival, visits with Santa, a festive holiday 5K, snow tubing, the free holiday Water Taxi rides, all the shows. Then, of course, it’s surrounded by all the light displays.”
Downtown in December officially launches every year on the day after Thanksgiving with the Bricktown Tree Lighting Festival, with this year’s kickoff event set for 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at the Third Base Plaza at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.
The series still includes staples like the Devon Ice Rink, Devon’s Saturdays with Santa and the recently rechristened LifeShare WinterFest and Snow Tubing.
But the Downtown in December roster has only grown in scope and scale as new partners have added their festivities, Cole said. Naturally, the banjo-playing Santa Claus will be spreading his Christmas cheer at the American Banjo Museum Candy Cane Christmas Dec. 10, while the American Indian Christmas trees are lighting up the Red Earth Arts Center during its third annual Treefest, continuing through Jan. 5.
Red Earth Treefest features two dozen holiday evergreens decorated with handmade ornaments and art objects created to spotlight the distinctive cultures of 20 Oklahoma-based American Indian tribes.
“This is about as Seminole as it gets,” said Red Earth Co-Director Eric Oesch, holding a miniature cowboy hat adorned with a feather. “The diamond ones are by the Choctaws, because in their culture, the rattlesnake plays a real important part … because they would have the rattlesnakes in the fields to eat the rodents that would eat their crops,” he added, fingering a colorful ornament made of glass beads.
“Last year, we offered the tribes the option to make additional ornaments to sell … and we sold out way before Christmas,” Oesch said. “This year, they have really come through.”
Myriad festivities
The Downtown Oklahoma City Partnership also adds events to the Downtown in December roster as it sees opportunities to serve new audiences, Cole said. For instance, the third annual A Dog Day in December, a Christmas party for pet owners and their pups featuring doggy photos with Santa, a cash bar, food trucks and more, is set for Dec. 1 at Midtown Mutts Dog Park.
The Myriad Botanical Gardens, whose holiday events are included under the Downtown in December umbrella, also is hoping to please animal lovers with Santa Paws, a Dec. 8 pooch party that is part of the gardens’ new Festive Fridays holiday events series.
“It should be so cute,” said Leslie Spears, director of public relations and marketing for the Myriad Botanical Gardens. “There’s so much going on at the gardens that it’s hard to keep up.”
The gardens continue to host the Devon Ice Rink, showcase the Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory with OG&E Merry & Bright Free Admission Sundays and offer an array of seasonal workshops covering topics like gingerbread house decorating and living wreath making.
But the festivities are continually evolving, with the carousel and chaletstyle shops swapping out this year in favor of added displays by local artists and programs like a Dec. 15 Festive Fridays session designed to give children with autism and other sensory processing disorders a comfortable meeting with Santa.
“We’re really getting good feedback — and we did this based upon request. We listen … and we’re building a following for it of families,” Spears said of the Sensory Santa Evening. “We’re always trying to make sure we’re keeping it fresh.”
Retro Christmas
For The City Cabaret OKC, keeping Christmas fresh means flashing back to the 1940s with its “Retro Wonderland” shows set for Dec. 21-23 at the intimate Paramount Theatre. About a dozen singers, backed by a jazz trio, will perform classic Christmas standards in the New York City cabaret tradition. The performers will dress in clothing from the era, and Carrizales said audiences are encouraged to go retro with their wardrobe, too.
“Getting dolled up and looking like you’re from the 1940s is a lot of fun. … We’re already doing the lineup for this year, and we’re trying to add in some Andrews Sisters’ stuff and have a good time with that. The music of the time is a lot of fun, and everybody who’s in the show really likes Christmastime,” she said.
“With the Christmas show, people are like actively looking for Christmas things to do, so we had a lot of people who had never come to any of our shows go, ‘Oh, that looks like a fun thing to go to,’ and then they came out and just had the greatest time. … It’s definitely been able to kind of put us more on the map. This will be the end of our third season, and we’ve had a really successful year.”