Things Yule love to do this holiday season

Here's a list of ways to light up the holidays.

The Vancouver Christmas Market returns for its second year to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre plaza. If you were put off by the many bumpy cable crossings last year, they have smoothed things out. To be fair last year's market was a Christmas miracle: just hours before the scheduled opening a propane tank exploded on the construction site. No one was hurt and the market was able to open eventually.

 The market is situated where Georgia meets Hamilton

The market features daily entertainment, crafts, food, drink and entertainment in the German tradition. There are accessible washrooms but n.o attendant fare or PWD discount of any kind. It could use some more lower seating for chairs, strollers, etc. Christmas stollen to die for!

Across from the VPL and the CBC

Watch them, ride them or both. For carol ship routes and schedules go to carolships.org.

There's something Dickensian about

skimming the top of deep, dark

water. Remember Scooge's noctural

journey over land and sea?

Through English Bay, False Creek
and Burrard Inlet

The Van Dusen Gardens Festival of Lights continues to dazzle year after year. To see how Santa spends the summer, visit the tropical dome in Queen Elizabeth Park. Check out the City of Vancouver's Parks Board site for information on these and other seasonal offerings at www.vancouver.ca/parks.

Don't miss the famous Woodward's animated Christmas windows. For younger or newer Lower Mainland residents, the name Woodward may be associated with Christmas as the surname of the boy who got his tongue stuck to a frozen lamp pole in the nostalgic movie "A Christmas Story". Like the movie the Woodward's windows take you back to a simpler time when Lower Mainlanders made their Yuletide pilgrimmage to view these treasures. The windows are featured throughout Vancouver's downtown core this Christmas. For a map and details on a contest go to http://www.canadaplace.ca/.

The season is a time of plenty, so we'll be back soon with lots more ways to light up the holidays!