Find a Hometown Christmas in the Mount Shasta Country
Holiday festivals welcome visitors to the rgion
Photo of Mr. & Mrs. Santa, © and courtesy Mark Gibson Photography. All rights reserved. Please contact markgibsonphoto.com for photo availability and price.
Families who are searching for a hometown feeling Christmas holiday, where friends and neighbors share the spirit of the season, can find what they're looking for in the Upstate California's Mount Shasta Country. Residents share the warmth of a small-town Christmas with visitors through the many holiday events and activities that all can enjoy.
Visitors to Mt. Shasta can join in with residents as Santa and his elves, who are members of the volunteer fire department, make their way through downtown and residential neighborhoods in the weeks before Christmas giving out candy to children. Mt. Shasta will begin its holiday season on Thanksgiving weekend with the Christmas tree lighting ceremony. Visitors can stand side by side with residents, singing Christmas carols and lighting candles. When the ceremony is over kids can visit with Santa. Gift shopping is fantastic in the town's many ar galleries, gift shops and specialty stores. Whether staying with friends or family, or in one of the comfortable bed and breakfast inns or motels, visitors can join in with locals for holiday cheer.
Children can make their holiday preparations at two events designed specially for them. At Weed's Old Fashioned Christmas kids can shop for presents for family and friends at Santa's Gift Shop in early December, where gifts are priced around 50 cents. The River Center in Dunsmuir invites kids to bring their favorite adults to the annual Children's River Christmas Festival where they will make holiday ornaments and gifts from pine cones, leaves, river rocks and other treasures of nature, play games and create watershed art. The residents of Mount Shasta County put up wonderful Christmas light displays, so after the kids have shopped and created, families can take a drive through any of these communities to appreciate the efforts of the locals.
There's more to a Christmas holiday than shopping and special events. Mount Shasta Country is home to nearly every winter outdoor activity on the planet. With the first snowfall, usually in early December, families can spend a morning sledding, taking a snowshoe adventure, skiing or snowboarding, riding snowmobiles, ice skating and even ice fishing. To get a close up view of the mountain, the family can drive up Everitt Memorial Highway to Bunny Flat where snow fields provide perfect ammunition for a snowball fight, slopes for sledding and a gateway for cross country skiers. The drive up to Bunny Flat is awe inspiring, with the roadway being carved out of walls of snow by huge snowplows. Stop on the drive up so mom or dad can kick some toe holds out of the snow walls, which grow to over 10 feet high, so they can help the kids climb up and look over the top at the sparking fields of snow and the canyon below. When toes and fingers get too cold, the family can retire to any of the many area restaurants for a fine, hot meal.
Vacationers can also head to the Mt. Shasta Board and Ski Park, where families and children are welcome at this resort which offers a safe environment for children and parents to learn to ski or board. Parents can sip mulled wine on the deck, comfortable in the knowledge that their children are safe taking a run down Easy Street. For parents who are looking for more action than the deck offers, the park has wonderful learn to ski and board packages. Lessons begin in the warm up area, where novices have a chance to get familiar with whatever they've strapped to their feet. After an hour or two on the Bunny Hill, the instructor takes these new skiers and boarders up the Marmot chair to Easy Street when they're ready. They'll take a few supervised runs down the slopes with the instructor, then they're on their own to seek adventure, or perhaps some mulled wine on the deck. If Easy Street and the deck aren't adventurous enough more advanced skiers and boarders need not be concerned, the park has plenty of intermediate and advanced groomed runs and treed areas for experienced parents and kids to get their thrills.
If the ski park is not quite the ticket, the family can head to the town of the McCloud, tucked away in the Shasta Trinity National Forest, and stop off at Snowman's Hill for some fun family sledding on the way. Parents will have the chance to chat with locals and visitors at the bottom of the hill as kids come zooming down on sleds and inner tubes.
McCloud holds its Old Fashioned Christmas celebration in early December, when Santa and his elves will come through town to greet residents and visitors. Enjoy warm refreshments at the town's museum, where Santa will stop. For a special treat, take the kids to Sugar Pine Candy Store, where they'll be dazzled by polished jars of candy and visions of sugar plums.
To get away from the snow, the family can drive north to the city of Yreka, where the climate is a little warmer. During the holiday parade at the end of November Yreka celebrates the season. Visitors can join residents on hay rides for warm drinks and caroling. Historic downtown Yreka will be the focal point of Christmas activities, with Miner Street closing for a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and live entertainment by local choirs and bands.
To wrap up the family's Christmas vacation in the Mount Shasta Region, families can drop in to the Klamath National Forest Service office in Yreka or the Shasta Trinity National Forest offices in Mt. Shasta and McCloud for a $10 Christmas tree permit. The folks at the Forest Service will provide amature lumberjacks with maps and suggestions on where to find that perfect tree. Parents will want to pack up some warm drinks and snacks, toasty warm gloves, dry clothes and a saw to take the kids on a tree cutting adventure before the family heads home.
For information on this year's home-town Christmas events and more, contact the Siskiyou County Visitors Bureau at 877-747-5496.
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