Tallest Christmas Tree To Dickensian Mysteries: This Weekend In CT

CONNECTICUT — Corralling the whole family for an out-of-doors excursion that isn't to Grandmother's house can be a tough sell the weekend before Christmas. There are last-minute presents to wrap, trays of holiday feasts to prepare, and hours of new shows to binge on The Hallmark Channel.

But for Connecticut residents with their marshmallows already toasted and tinsel in gear, there are still a few special holiday events to take in before they disappear up the chimney with Santa.

Start at the very top, with a star, and Connecticut's tallest Christmas tree on dazzling display at the 11th annual Lake Compounce Amusement and Water Park's celebration "Holiday Lights," plugged in through Dec. 31.

At 100 feet, and boasting more than 120,000 lights, the timber in Bristol makes that Rockefeller Center contestant look like a twig.

Tickets are available online, and include all-day park access with select rides, a Santa meet-and greet, a cruise aboard the North Pole Railway, "stuff-a-bear," make your own snow globe and other festive activities.

If a visit to a water park is somehow not on your family's checklist of cherished Christmas traditions, then why not go full-on figgy pudding at "A Charles Dickens' Christmas" in Middlefield? Lyman Orchards is the setting for this text book traditional family Christmas event, drenched in hot apple cider and brimming with freshly baked donuts. Outside are lighted scenes and familiar characters from "A Christmas Carol." Inside the historical Lyman Homestead at 3 Lyman Road, activities include letter writing to Santa, a miniature wooden ornament coloring station, and story time in the Great Room.

The rain-or-shine event has been enchanting Connecticut residents all December, and Saturday is the last huzzah. Times and tickets are available online here.

You want even more Christmas Victoriana? Then may we direct your attention to that most unlikely of mash-ups, "A Sherlock Carol," now in its final days at The Westport Playhouse.

Tiny Tim, one of those beloved Dickens characters found wandering around Lyman Orchards, has grown up, and enlisted the deductive superpowers of Sherlock Holmes to investigate the peculiar death of Ebenezer Scrooge. It's "a dark and treacherous Christmas Eve, and once again the holiday is haunted by the spirits of the past, present, and future," the promoters promise. The thrilling mystery is also an all-ages heartwarming holiday production, now through Dec. 23. Tickets are available online here.

You'll find more yuletide spooks this weekend in Mystic when Seaside Shadows Haunted History Tours presents "Ghosts of Christmas Past Strolls."

We can't blame Dickens for making ghost stories a hallmark of Christmas tradition — they've been a large part of our end-of-year holidays from way back when the only big event to celebrate in December was the return of the sun. Weekends through December, Mystic's demonic docents will bring you up to speed on all manner of Christmas cryptid, singing phantom and nefarious phantasm haunting both our collective consciousness and the dockside streets on a lantern-lit stroll through that most picturesque of Connecticut towns. More information and tickets are available online.