Tramway tree lights up the Coachella Valley
Special celebrity guests Eric and Lindsey Bennett from HGTV’s Desert Flippers kicked off this year’s tree lighting celebration at the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway’s Mountain Station.
“We’re super honored to be lighting the tree up the aerial tramway it’s really exciting,” said Eric Bennett. And Lindsey added, “Yeah, we’ve got all the kids bundled up. And we’ve been playing poolside all day…but now we’ve got layers and layers on so we can have a little winter wonderland of Christmas. It’s one of our favorite parts about being in the desert.”
This year’s spectacular tree stands at 45 feet tall with more than 4,000 LED lights. Sunday night’s event brought thousands up the mountain to experience the annual holiday magic.
“Yeah it’s kind of jarring you feel like you’re traveling on a plane…but it’s really just 10 minutes and then you’re in a different world,” said Eric Martin, who made the trip from Los Angeles.
“So this year we lucked out the first snow of the season happened last Thursday. So it just happened to correlate with our tree lighting, which was very fortuitous for us. So it brought a lot of local visitors out as well as people from LA and San Diego,” said Cara Youngman, the public relations manager for the tram.
The Palm Springs Tram experiences a surge of visitors and tourists during the busy holiday season with thousands of guests anticipated every day.
The tree lighting took place at 5:30 p.m. Visitors enjoyed festive holiday lights, chilly temperatures, snow on the ground and a musical performance from Palm Springs High School’s Madrigals and String Quartet.
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