My Travel Experience: Leavenworth WA: Christmas Lighting Festival

Looking down the main street of Leavenworth with the

crowd and the lights

I've lived in Washington State my entire life with a few exceptions while in the army and as an exchange student. I've even lived in Wenatchee, which is a town just down the highway from Leavenworth. While we've visited Leavenworth quite a few times, we've never checked out the Christmas Lightning Festival.

Leavenworth is a small town with a Bavarian theme located in the Cascade Mountain Range. It's a beautiful little slice of Germany with some amazing scenery. The town features quite a few shops and has some great local wine tasting.

The Christmas Lighting Festival brought about 15,000 people this year to this tiny town that has a regular population of about 2000. The entire town was packed everywhere we went. The sound of Christmas was in the air as bands played Christmas music from the main gazebo/stage in the center of town. Santa and his helpers can be seen throughout the day and there are many extra vendors out selling their products. Snow was plentiful and the smells were delicious.

Parking was difficult to say the least. Because so many people were here for the festival, all the usual public parking spots were full. We ended up parking at the local high school a few blocks away and paid the $10 fee. We ate at King Ludwig's Restaurant right when we arrived. We were starving after the long drive there and just went to the first place we could find. The German food and atmosphere were great, but the price was on the spendy side.

A view of downtown when we arrived

We didn't go in too many of the shops just because of all the people. It was pretty crazy, I've never seen so many people in this tiny town before. We did make it into one of the local wine shops. My wife did their wine sampling and my friend and I had some "Gluhwein", just like we used to have when we visited the Christmas Markets in Germany.

After that we waited until the ceremony which starts at 4:30. The kids choir finished their songs and then the mayor came out and did a little speech. Santa Claus came out and said a few things, then some folks brought some lit up stars to the gazebo from each side of the crowd. They had a count down...and then over half a million lights lit up the town. The site was pretty amazing and beautiful!