Attention all skiers, snowboarders and snow bunnies: ski season is approaching quickly and that can only mean one thing—Christmas and New Years will be here before you know it! If you haven’t already booked your cabin or lodge for your Christmas skiing festivities, you better get on that. Still not sure where to go? Here’s a list of the top ski resorts to spend the holidays at in the United States.
6. Northstar-at-Tahoe, CA – For family-filled fun in the snow, you’ll love spending the holidays at Northstar at Tahoe. The holiday season here bustles with special activities, like Santa visits, caroling, ice skating, hot cocoa, s’mores, photos with Santa, wine tasting, a Christmas Day Candy Cane fun race and a New Year’s Eve party with fireworks, live music, entertainment, food and drinks.
5. Santa Fe, NM – Santa Fe is a great city to enjoy the warm, fuzzy feelings of Christmas while also enjoying excellent skiing opportunities. During the holiday season, restaurants offer holiday specials and hotels stage Christmas events that feature music, storytelling, craft demonstrations and more. Events include Las Posadas, a traditional Spanish outdoor play that anybody can join, re-enacting Mary and Joseph’s search for a room; Native American dances, Christmas at the Palace with carols, story telling, Santa and his elves, music, cider and cookies.
4. Jackson Hole Resort & Jackson, WY – Even with its “old west” ambience, you’ll feel like you’re in a magical place when you visit Jackson during the Christmas season. Holiday events include Santa on the Square, with homemade cookies, hot cider and coffee; performances of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and “A Christmas Carol on Ice”; tree lighting, Santa, crafts, and the annual children’s Torchlight Parade on New Year’s Eve.
3. Vail and Beaver Creek, CO – During the holiday season, Vail and Beaver Creek not only offer miles of snowsliding, they also offer an abundance of holiday activities. Beaver Creek offers caroling, ice sculptures, holiday crafts, skating, “A Christmas Carol” performance, tree lighting parties, and a New Year’s Eve Torchlight Ski Down Spectacular and fireworks show. At Vail Cascade Resort & Spa, you’ll enjoy cooking demonstrations, kids’ activities, Santa visits, Chanukah arts & crafts, in-room Elf tuck-ins, gingerbread house decorating, stocking and ornament decorating, pictures with Santa, complimentary family portraits, New Year’s Eve dinner and New Year’s Day football.
2. Woodstock, VT – Besides great skiing conditions, small shops and great restaurants, Woodstock is also home to the Woodstock Inn. Here you’ll discover Christmas festivities like “Holiday on a Stage,” a reading of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” “A Child’s Magical Wonderland” – an opportunity to work alongside the elves in Santa’s workshop, holiday treats, historic ornament making and horse-drawn sleigh rides.
1. Bretton Woods/Mt. Washington Hotel, NH – This entire hotel building and surrounded grounds are decorated to look like a magical North Pole palace, with boughs of greenery, twinkling lights, Christmas trees, wooden soldiers and enchanted scenes, you’ll completely lose yourself in the Christmas spirit when you stay here this holiday season. Oh, and did I mention that roasted chestnuts and mulled apple cider are served in the lobby? And, there are tons of family activities, like gingerbread cookie decorating, holiday crafts, snow tubing, horse drawn sleigh rides, snowshoeing, night skiing, torchlight parade and fireworks.
