Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania

Perhaps the one that's had the most impact on me in recent years, outside of Disney of course, is one that I’d never heard of, until a friend introduced us to it a few years ago. Last Christmas we then carried the tradition on, introducing our friends, who lived only a couple of hours' drive away, to it as well.

The place is Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, about 30 miles outside of Philadelphia. It has a fascinating history and one that you can explore in the exhibits in the Gardens, but it’s a story worth knowing a bit about before you go. It was really the result of one man's dream (sound at all familiar?!) and that man was industrialist Pierre du Pont,  who was also a conservationist, designer, and farmer, skills he brought together at Longwood Gardens. He purchased the estate in the early part of the 20th century to save the trees in the existing Pierce Arboretum.

Mr. du Pont was also a keen traveler and evidence of that can be seen everywhere in the gardens. I was fascinated to learn that, in just one trip to Europe, he visited 50 different French chateaux. We managed to tour two or three on a recent visit to the Loire Valley, so I can start to imagine how breathtaking that journey through the various chateaux must have been.

Although the estate is open to the public year round, and you can visit attractions like the Pierce-du Pont House, which looks at the history of the site, the real attraction at this time of year are the outdoor lights. Now, we're not exactly talking the Osborne Spectacle of Lights here, but what we are talking about is something very magical.

From almost the second you pass through the entrance, you can see trees in the distance, all decorated in twinkling lights. Of course, at that time of the year it gets dark early and both times we’ve visited, we've either arrived in the darkness or just as it was becoming dark, when the lights come into their own. In total, there are approximately half a million lights and, in the main, each tree tends to be decorated in just one colour, be it red, blue, green, silver or gold, which makes for a more striking picture postcard view. The lights may not dance for you, but they do immediately bring the magic of Christmas to life in front of your eyes.

The starring role of any Longwood Garden Christmas, for us, is the huge Conservatory, with its stunning indoor displays. Each year, these change just a little bit, but you can always guarantee that the perennial Christmas flower favourites, the poinsettia, will take center stage in the displays here. Having recently come from Walt Disney World and been disappointed by how few poinsettias they had, I was delighted to see so many here. There are many other floral delights in the Conservatory as well, with lilies, orchids, and beautiful amaryllis just some of those that come to mind.

As if the sight when you first walk into the Orangery of the Conservatory isn't breathtaking enough, they always save the best for the Exhibition Hall, at the back of the building, where their huge Christmas tree is located. In 2009, it was a floral carpet, made up almost entirely of red or white poinsettias, drawing out a diamond design, surrounded by trees with gleaming white lights on them, completing the scene perfectly. A few years earlier, when we had visited, there had similarly been poinsettias, but in a very different display, based around water.