Crazy for Christmas

Missouri city embraces season in all its bright, whimsical glory

BRANSON, MO.— There are cities that are all about the Christmas holiday season. And then there’s Branson. This southern Missouri city, flanked by the Ozark mountains, amplifies the season to Vegas-style heights.

Five million dazzling lights and light shows, 1,000 decorated trees — including a five-storey special effects Christmas tree — Broadway-style productions of A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life, and markets galore.

The 1880s-style theme park Silver Dollar City is home to the Christmas on Main Street show with an insane musical choreographed light show featuring lit, towering Christmas trees, buildings and hanging canopies. The show is followed by a colourful holiday parade with musical floats covered in lights that winds through the streets of the massive amusement park.

And there’s the Andy Williams Christmas Show and The Hughes Brothers Christmas Show, just a few of about a million other shows in this city known for its, well, shows.

It’s Vegas minus the booze and broke bank accounts, and it entertains about eight million visitors each year.

Family-friendly, all-American Branson has been celebrating Christmas like nobody’s business for two decades from about Nov. 5 to Dec. 30 each year.

July is its busiest tourism month, but November and December are the next busiest and attract about 1.3 million visitors.

Christmas in all its kitschy glory pretty much came to die here. If you’re not a holiday season fan, you’ll likely shoot your eye out if you visit.

But for the rest of us, this unabashedly cheerful tourist town makes for a fun family-friendly trip.

Ho, ho, hone in on that holiday spirit in a city where the merry-making is for the taking. Charmaine Noronha’s trip was sponsored by the Branson-Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureau.

BRANSON CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU Rudolph’s Holly Jolly Christmas Light Parade winds through Silver Dollar City’s streets twice each evening (weather permitting) from Nov. 5 to Dec 30.

BOB LINDER DIGITAL MEDIA “Think of a snow globe and just add legs to it and a head on top,” said Silver Dollar City’s director of entertainment and events, John Ancona.

BRANSON CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU PHOTOS As grand marshal, Rudolph leads the evening parades of 33 costumed characters, including Sam the Snowman and Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster. The parade features nine floats, which are lit by 200,000 LED lights.

The Magnificent 7 Variety Show is just one of the many daily and nightly theatre shows in Branson.

For 20 years, the Branson Belle has been cruising Table Rock Lake.

Crowds gather to enjoy an evening of entertainment inside the Branson Belle Showboat.