Christmas, culture, history and hockey in the Music City

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – There are plenty of destinations across North America where you could spend a terrific Christmas-style vacation, whether it be traditional or contemporary. But how about spending a country Christmas in the Music City?

During a recent press tour that I took of Nashville, I found out that you don’t have to go to New York City  (with its famous tree at Rockefeller Plaza and the annual Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular) to have a truly Christmas vacation. And in Nashville, the nucleus of this Country Christmas is at the Gaylord Opryland Resort just outside of downtown Nashville (www.gaylordopryland.com).

First of all, to say that the Gaylord Opryland is massive is an understatement. This hotel is like a city-within-a-city, complete with shops, fine dining and fast food restaurants, clubs and recreation spots. And every inch of the place was decorated in Christmas splendour, with some of the largest Christmas trees that I have ever seen under one roof, including the “Parade of Trees”, in which a number of trees are personally decorated by a selection of top country music stars (like Dolly Parton and Vince Gill) that are filled with gifts selected by these stars and are all up for auction t the highest bidder, in which the proceeds go to their favorite charity.

One of the highlights of the Gaylord Opryland’s Country Christmas is “Ice!” (pictured right), a dazzling exhibition at the resort’s Events Center, in which over two million pounds of ice are magically transformed into crafted ice sculptures; this year, these colorful ice sculptures retell in great detail Clement Clarke Moore’s epic holiday poem “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”. As well, “Ice!” features live ice carving demonstrations (pictured below), a Nativity scene done in crystal clear ice, 20-foot tall ice slides, a marvelous gift boutique and for adults, a chance to enjoy a frosty cocktail at the On the Blocks ice bar. And here’s a helpful hint: use the insulated parkas that are offered to visitors at the entrance of the exhibition, because with all that ice that needs to be preserved from now until January 3, it gets quite chilly inside.

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If you want to experience some culture in Nashville that doesn’t have to do with country music, here are two recommendations. The Nashville Symphony (www.nashvillesymphony.org), in their home base at the Schermerhorn concert hall in downtown Nashville (pictured below), offers a wide variety of classical and non-classical music concerts in their ongoing Classical, Pops and Legends of Music series. The night our press entourage attended the Schermerhorn, the orchestra paid a musical salute to great jazz and blues music of the 20s and 30s called “A Night at the Cotton Club”. Other Nashville Symphony shows that took place or are taking place throughout the remainder of the year included a concert with violinist Itzhak Perlman, a screening of “Home Alone” with live musical accompaniment by the orchestra, a concert with the symphony and Tony Bennett, a special event Christmas concert with Celtic Thunder, and a special performance of Handel’s Messiah with the symphony’s chorus.

The interior of the Schermerhorn concert hall

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts (www.fristcenter.org), which was originally built as a post office 80 years ago, is currently holding an exhibition that takes a look at a rare aspect of the art from the Italian Renaissance period. “Sanctity Pictured”, which runs until January 25, is dedicated to the artistic contributions of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders of monks in Renaissance Italy. The collection of paintings, hand-illustrated manuscripts, religious objects and sculptures tells a fascinating story of how these monks who devoted their lives to religion had a knack for creating such splendid works of art (many of which have been loaned to the museum directly from the Vatican’s library and museum in Rome). Also, take a few minutes to absorb the beautiful art deco style architecture of the museum’s lobby (which you can get the full story behind the building’s construction with a free architecture tour that takes place on the first Saturday of every month).

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Civil War buffs will certainly get their fill when visiting the Nashville area. In particular, the town of Franklin, where one of the major battles of the western theatre of the Civil War took place that sparked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy and its army.

This year marked the 150^th anniversary of the pivotal Battle of Franklin, and to commemorate this historical milestone, a full-fledged re-enactment took place at the site where the battle took place, which was the Carnton Plantation complex. Civil War re-enactors converged on Franklin the weekend I was there to step back in time to that fateful November day in 1864. And whether they were soldiers or civilians, wore authentic period costumes and uniforms (both North and South) and authentically lived the way of life of the 1860s, right down to the way they cooked their food and the magazines they read (I saw copies of “Harper’s Weekly” lying around the living quarters during my visit). And the battle re-enactment was just as authentic, from the battle maneuvers to the volleys of musket fire and blasts from the cannons that were positioned on the battlefield, which gave the huge crowd gathered for the battle a rather harrowing representation of what a typical Civil War battle was like in its ferocity. It even attracted a crew from the CBS News Sunday Morning program, which was doing an item about the movement to preserve Civil War battlefields across the U.S. (which aired on the November 30 broadcast).

The Carnton Pkantation main house

Also highly recommended is the tour of the Carnton Plantation (pictured right), in which owners John and Carrie McGavock literally witnessed the Battle of Franklin from the comfort of their home. The guided tour of the main house, which was built in 1826, is fascinating and is preserved to the way it looked in November of 1864, when the Confederate Army commandeered the house to use it as a field hospital. One of the more haunting aspects of the tour is walking through one of the bedrooms of the house that was used as an operating room, in which the bloodstains of the wounded Confederate soldiers are still embedded within the floorboards.

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If you are a hockey fan, then a visit to Nashville is not complete unless you catch a Nashville Predators home game at the Bridgestone Arena (aka “Smashville”), which is located just minutes away from the Ryman Auditorium, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and the honky-tonk clubs of Broadway (www.nashvillepredators.com).

Action between the Nashville Predators and the Winnipeg Jets at the Bridgestone Arena

The Predators (which has former Habs player Mike Ribeiro and Carrie Underwood’s husband Mike Fisher on the team) have quite a large, loyal local fan base (in which they refer to going to a Predators game as “hockey-tonking”), and they show their devotion to the “Preds” in quite an energetic, spirited way. One way is when the Predators are on a power play, the fans in the stands have to turn the index and middle fingers of one hand into “fang fingers” (representing the fangs of the team’s sabre tooth tiger mascot, whose name is “Gnash”). And of course, country music pervades the atmosphere of the Bridgestone Arena; every time the Predators score a goal, the jumbotron plays a music video that features country music star Tim McGraw (wearing a Predators jersey) singing a shortened version of his hit song “I Like It, I Love It”, in which the fans sing along quite loudly. By the way, for those Montreal Canadiens fans who want to make the trip to Nashville, the Predators will be hosting the Habs in their only game at the Bridgestone Arena on March 24.

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To find out what else Nashville can offer tourists, visit www.visitmusiccity.com or call 1-800-657-6910.