By Craig Horleman

It’s said that the holidays are the most magical time of the year. And from the looks of things around the area, that has to be true.

Venues have gone all out this Christmas to produce fun for the whole family — from lights to villages to making it snow.

Here are a few ideas to make your holidays merry and bright:

• Schellville, behind the Tanger Outlets Seaside Mall, off Del. 1 in Rehoboth Beach, has made its debut this year in a big way.

In 2017, a magical Christmas village called Schellville was born. In the first season at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal, it started with nine miniature houses decorated with activities and Christmas trees. This year, Schellville has moved down to Rehoboth and added train rides, snow zones, additional houses, a roller rink and much more.

“We have a fantastic collaboration with Tanger Outlets. And we added 20 artists in shacks, which is really cool. We have local businesses selling things and they’re giving 10 percent of sales to The Harry K Foundation. So that’s been really awesome,” said Alyssa Titus, director of marketing for Schell Brothers Homes, sponsor of the event.

“We’re generating a ton of revenue for our small local businesses, which is super exciting. We bought an extremely large roller rink. And then we have our Christmas tree maze. We have 1,620 Christmas trees that are lit and you can explore them. We have little elf houses back there. And if you go on our website (Schellville.com), there’s a link you can click so that there’s stories about each elf that lives in each house.”

In addition, Santa Claus is there every night, along with a beer garden sponsored by Revelation Brewery, hospitality tents, sponsored by La Vida Hospitality, a snow zone for safe snowball fights and a live entertainment stage sponsored by The Starboard.

Admission is free.

“The community has really loved it. We’ve probably had 40,000-plus visitors already and I may be a little low on that,” Ms. Titus said, adding that 10,000 people came to Schellville on Black Friday. That caused them to adopt a reservation system.

“This is the first time we’ve done a festival of this scope. Before, we just had the villages and now we have all these different amenities in the village and it’s in 6.6 acres. So we’re super thrilled with the communities’ involvement in response to the event and we’ve been trying to improve experiences as we kind of move through this,” Ms. Titus said.

Schellville is open Thursday through Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m. through Dec. 31. Reservations are being taken on their website to block out the hours of 5 to 7 p.m. or 7 to 9 p.m. Reservations aren’t required but they are highly recommended to guarantee admission.

“If you don’t have a reservation, be prepared to wait and my recommendation is get there early,” said Ms. Titus, who added that some guests did have to be turned away on Saturday night for the first time.

There are also early bird hours from 2 to 4 p.m. for senior citizens and young families in which you do not need reservations.

“It’s not as magical from 2 to 4 because the lights aren’t on. It looks different than it does at night, obviously, but it’s been working really well,” Ms. Titus said.

Schell Brothers Homes partners with a local charity every month through its Kudos for a Cause campaign. Throughout the duration of the festival, the charity is The Harry K Foundation, which combats childhood hunger.

“We’re really trying to raise a lot of money for him. In our first nine days, we have raised $25,000 for Harry K since the beginning of the festival,” Ms. Titus said.

In addition, if anyone hashtags “Kudos for Christmas,” on social media, $1 will be given to The Harry K Foundation.

“I don’t know what we thought was going to happen with (Schellville). The response has been unbelievable. It’s really exciting and we love giving back to this community that we live in and we build houses in and this is just another way that we can do that. Our mission is happiness,” Ms. Titus said.

For more information on Schellville or to find out how you can volunteer, visit here.

• Open daily 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. through Jan. 2, Winter WonderFEST, founded and independently created by the nonprofit Festival of Cheer Inc., is going strong at Hudson Fields on Del. 1 near Milton.

This drive-through one-mile light show supports Sussex County charities.

Guests can drive through themselves or hayrides are available with cookies and cocoa, with an appearance by Santa at the grand finale where children can drop off their wish lists.

Since 2016, the nonprofit has partnered with dozens of community supporters to raise over $550,000 to enrich Sussex County. They have awarded over $205,000 of support to Sussex County nonprofit organizations via their grant program, and invested over $350,000 to expand the festival.

Winter WonderFEST started at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal but moved to Hudson Fields in 2019.

“We just had the concept that we wanted to get more holiday activities at the beach and, at the same time, give back as much money as we could charitably during this holiday season. So there was a two-pronged approach of creating a big tourist attraction but also being able to ensure that money was going back to the community,” said Peter Briccotto, executive producer of Winter WonderFEST.

Attractions added this year include a Small Wonder display as well as an Under the Sea exhibit. Gone this year is the ice rink and winter carnival, which they had in 2019 and 2020.

“We were just experiencing a lot of growth. It’s really clear that even as amazing and big as Hudson Fields is, we needed to keep preparing for more and more people to come. And that’s very uncommon to see light shows with any other attractions mostly because where do you put all the people? So we wanted to flip our routes for our light show to queue up all the traffic within the Hudson Fields property and not blocking in neighborhoods and local roads,” Mr. Briccotto said.

“And also make the entrance into the light show much faster for our guests instead of having to experience an hour and a half to two-hour wait times.”

This year, all approaching northbound traffic makes a left at Eagles Crest Road, and all approaching southbound traffic makes a right at Hudson Road to access the event.

For those missing the ice rink and carnival, fear not. Mr. Briccotto said plans are in the works for a new venue for Winter WonderFEST.

“We didn’t have the money to necessarily jump into a new venue this year. So a portion of our proceeds from 2021 will help us do that to bring it back in 2022. But we weren’t in the position to bite off more than we could chew this year,” he said.

The goal this year is to raise $100,000 for the new venue and $75,000 for grant money.

“We are in the process of fleshing out plans and what’s really feasible (for a new venue). We want to make sure that we find a venue that can park plenty of cars to make sure nobody gets turned away. Our big thing is we want to make sure none of our events have a sold-out sign on them. We want to be accessible to the community and make sure anybody who wants to come to enjoy it can.”

Mr. Briccotto said he’s thrilled with the turnout this year.

“We have had a phenomenal response so far. We brought in a lot more lights this year and a few different displays, which the crowds are loving. Of course, this year, there’s a lot more going on just across the region. So our numbers are the same as 2020. But they’re doing just as well as we did in 2019, which is super encouraging, knowing people have a busy holiday season but they’re still making the trip down to see us,” he said.

The cost for WonderFEST is $20 per carload Monday through Wednesday, $25 Thursday through Sunday and Dec. 24 through Jan. 2.

Tickets for the car ride, hayride, to volunteer and grant information can be found here.

• Lewes Lights, the free holiday lights driving tour, is on during the month of December.

Visitors are provided a driving tour map of decorated properties within Lewes and the option to vote for their favorite homes within several award categories including the most coveted award, “The Clark Griswold of Lewes 2021.”

There are 193 displays along the route both in and outside Lewes. The Children’s Beach House is the 2021 philanthropic partner for Lewes Lights, which is in its second year.

Longwood Gardens, in conjunction with Children’s Beach House, is sharing some of its nationally recognized holiday decorations in the city of Lewes as part of 2021 Lewes Lights.

Trees will be prominently displayed in Lewes parks and displays on loan from Longwood Gardens will be installed at the Children’s Beach House to celebrate Lewes Lights. Check out the Lewes Lights tour map here.

• Speaking of Longwood Gardens, the popular attraction, just over the Delaware-Pennsylvania state line, is especially busy around the winter holidays. This year’s Longwood Christmas theme is “Fire, Ice, and Everything Nice,” and is on display through Jan. 9.

The East Conservatory greets visitors with a blanket of warmth and takes them through a trail of lights entwined in winter flowers like anthuriums and begonias.

The Orangery inside features an array of poinsettias and white birch trees and a succulent fountain in the Silver Garden has a “frozen” appearance. The Acacia Passage is adorned in cool, white tones and leads to the Exhibition Hall, transformed into a “refreshingly whimsical alpine wonderland.” Finally, the Music Room is dressed for a festive family celebration.

Outdoors, nearly half a million lights adorn the trees, shrubs and flowers on Flower Garden Drive, the Large Lake features a luminaria display, and a 200-foot-long Meadow Tunnel is lit by nearly 20,000 twinkling lights gently transitioning from warm fire to rainbow to galaxy effects.

The Main Fountain Garden plays a light show periodically throughout the night and kids can enjoy the festive Garden Railway, showcasing a collection of dozens of locomotives, steam engines, diesel engines, and specialty engines — as well as the ever-popular Thomas the Tank Engine and many of his friends — as they rumble along nearly 500 feet of track amid textural foliage, flowering plants, and woody plants.

Longwood Gardens is open daily from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. during the Christmas season. Timed tickets help to scatter admission and must be purchased for entry here.

New director

The Delaware Choral Society recently announced that a new artistic director has been selected. He is Rocky Tejada, who is currently the choral director at Odessa High School and the director of music at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Wilmington.

They plan to start their spring season Jan. 4 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Wesley United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall in Dover.

A concert of “Remembrance and Hope” will be held April 2 at 7 p.m. at Wyoming United Methodist Church.

Featuring the John Rutter “Requiem,” other selections will focus on the joy of singing and uplifting the spirit.

DCS is a non-auditioned choral community group with all singers welcome. COVID protocol procedures will be followed.

For more information, visit here.

Now showing

New this weekend in theaters is the sports movie “National Champions” and the remake of the musical “West Side Story.”

Staff writer Rachel Sawicki contributed to this story.