Mission Inn Hotel & Spa celebrates the 27th Annual Festival of Lights
The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa celebrates the Festival of Lights, a five-week “Winter Wonderland” display of over 5 million enchanting holiday lights set to illuminate Southern California’s historic landmark and AAA-Four Diamond hotel, from Friday, November 29 through Monday, January 6.
Back for its 27th consecutive year, the annual holiday extravaganza will be even grander this year, with 400 animated figures including angels, elves and carolers; the world’s largest man-made mistletoe under the Campanario; and an animated light tree programmed for a four-minute magical animated display.
New additions for 2019 include a sparkling, four-story-tall cascading chandelier with over 30,000 light bulbs in the hotel’s International Rotunda; the Anton Clock in the Spanish Patio featuring elves that rotates every 15 minutes; as well as the North Pole Walkway dotted with Santa’s Elves playing in the snow and leading to Santa’s Workshop with brilliant shining canopy lights, Elves filling Santa’s sled with toys, and a life-size Gingerbread House.
This year’s highly anticipated “Switch-On Ceremony” takes place on Friday, November 29 at 5:15 pm. The ceremony will conclude with four-minute-long fireworks show choreographed to holiday music and other over-the-top experiences to be revealed that night.
One of the hallmarks of this year’s holiday display at The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa is a Life-Size Gingerbread House on display in the hotel lobby. Measuring 12-feet high, 5-feet wide, and 9-feet long, and pieced together from 800 gingerbread bricks, 300 gingerbread tiles on the rooftop , and over 100 pounds of royal icing, ‘Santa’s Winter Wonderland House’ will be decorated with candy canes, macarons and a Candy Christmas Tree and surrounded by a white picket fence. Visitors who peek inside will find interiors dressed for the holidays with a decorated Christmas tree and a fireplace hung with care.
The lobby will also feature a traditional live 19-foot Noble Fir Christmas tree. The tree was planted as a seedling in the Cascade Range of Washington in 1999, and reserved years in advance from Delancey Street Trees, part of the Delancey Street Foundation, the country’s leading residential self-help organization to help rehabilitate and turn lives around in the community.
For more information or to make reservations at The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, please call 800.843.7755 or visit missioninn.com.
