Christmas in a small town. The idea immediately conjures up an image of a charming street, lined with snow-capped houses, each one framed with sparkling string lights, and perhaps even a merry group of carolers serenading from some lucky soul’s doorstep.
If this wholesome holiday image is something you would like to experience this winter, we have you covered. BetCarolina.com, your source for N.C. sports betting , scoured the state — and the internet — to find North Carolina’s top Christmas towns.
Our hunt began by consulting the Blue Ridge Mountains Travel Guide, and its list of the Top 15 Christmas towns. From there, we wanted to see which locations were the most popular, so we used Google Trends to gather the search volume interest of each spot during last year’s holiday season — between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31
You can see our ranking of the Top 10 best Christmas towns in North Carolina below. But first one quick note: We’ve excluded the state’s top 20 most populous areas from our list. After all, we know what you really want is to visit a quaint small town straight out of a Hallmark Christmas movie.
Waynesville is the best Christmas town in North Carolina by our metrics. With a population just over 10,000, the picturesque small town is nestled between the state’s iconic Smoky and Blue Ridge mountains. The downtown features a charming Main Street that already is decked out in Yuletide regalia for the 2023 season. This year the annual Christmas parade will be held Dec.4 and features a holiday movie theme!
The second-best Christmas town on our list is Hendersonville. Another mountain town, Hendersonville celebrates the holidays from mid-November all the way through to the new year. Boasting its own twinkling green and red downtown core, upcoming events include carriage rides, Christmas markets and, of course, visits from Santa. The festivities kick off each year with the traditional downtown tree lighting on the day after Thanksgiving.
Morganton, which is our third-ranked town, lit its tree even sooner. The lights went on Nov. 18, during their downtown winter carnival. You still can make the Dec. 5 parade.
Like our top three, the rest of our list of North Carolina Christmas Towns all can be found in the mountainous western area of the state. This, of course, is not surprising, given that it’s the region that sees the most snowfall. In fact, the two northernmost Christmas towns on our list, Boone and Blowing Rock, are regularly covered with snow throughout the winter.
Meanwhile, the highest altitude Christmas town on our list, Beech Mountain, snagged the final spot in our ranks. You can expect upwards of 80 inches of snowfall there annually.
But whatever Christmas town you decide to visit, remember that BetCarolina.com has a present for you when you return home — and you don’t need to wait until Dec. 25 to open it either. We’ll be gifting you the best North Carolina sports betting promo codes to use in the new year.
Author
Jeff Parker is a writer for BetCarolina.com. A writer for film, television and the internet, Jeff is a life long movie buff, with an actual Masters Degree in Popular Culture. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he works full time as documentary filmmaker and producer.
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