A Holiday Tradition in Historic Downtown Bristol: 43rd Annual Christmas Tree Lighting with Inaugural Winter Carnival

November 20, 2023 (Bristol VA/TN) – Bristol’s 43rd Annual Community Christmas Tree Lighting is set for Sunday, November 26, 2023 on Cumberland Street in Historic Downtown Bristol. The event showcases the site’s 30-foot Douglas Fir, lit this season with over 13,000 twinkling LED lights and surrounded by twenty-five live trees decorated by community members as part of Believe in Bristol’s Christmas Tree Village.

In addition to the Annual Christmas Tree Lighting, Believe in Bristol will host its Inaugural Winter Carnival in conjunction with the event. This free community event begins at 4:00 p.m. and will include free hot cocoa and cotton candy,  carnival-style games and activities, and crafts and goodies for children to take home.

The Annual Christmas Tree Lighting, scheduled to take place at 6:30 p.m., will feature community caroling, a ceremony led by our Bristol city representatives, and conclude with a live performance by the big man himself and his band, Santa and the Sleigh Boys! Santa will perform an hour long set of bluegrass, country, and rockabilly style Christmas tunes, in a showcase that is quintessentially Bristol and spectacularly festive.

Music, community, and Christmas spirit will fill the evening air as local residents crowd around the tree to ring in the holiday season together.

“This event holds a special place in hearts all across our community,” says Maggie Elliott, Believe

in Bristol Executive Director. “We’re so proud of the additions we’ve made this year and hope community members will feel like they’ve stumbled upon the set of a Christmas movie when they arrive to celebrate with us that evening.”

For more information about the Community Christmas Tree Lighting or Winter Carnival, please call 423-573-2201 or visit www.believeinbristol.org/Christmas.