Tag Archives: New Jersey Tourism

CHRISTMAS IN NEW JERSEY 2022

New Jersey comes alive with the Christmas spirit during the holiday season, with events, tours and displays taking place across the state from early November until the New Year.

With multiple daily direct flights from London Heathrow, Edinburgh and Dublin into Newark, a great choice of accommodation to suit all budgets and some great bargains to be found if you want to do a little tax-free Christmas shopping, now is a great time to take a trip to the Garden State.

Light Displays

Dasher’s Newark Drive-Through Christmas Light Show

This spectacular Christmas drive-through celebration features the syncing of over one million lights choreographed to holiday music played through your car radio on 97.5 FM. Running at Newark Moonlight Cinema from 25th November 25th until 31st December. Read more here.

Orchard of Lights – Drive-Through

From 23rd November until 1st January 2023 Demarest Farms in Hillsdale will be running their annual festival drive-through, with 32 acres of brilliant holiday light displays. In addition, there is a fire pit to sit around and enjoy hot cocoa and treats from the farm market, make your own S’mores, take pictures with Santa and listen to the singing Reindeer. Read more here.

Newark Winter Village

From 01st December until 15th January 2023 the Newark Winter Village offers curbside food, ice skating a marketplace.  Enjoy food and hot beverages from local businesses inside a cozy heated pod or igloo. Read more click here.

Skylands Stadium’s Light Show and Christmas Village

Sussex County’s Skyland Stadium transforms into a dazzling winter wonderland from 23rd November to 31st December, showcasing a mile-long drive-through Christmas light display and a Christmas Village full of fun-filled activities, delicious treats and memory-making photo opportunities. Read more here.

Above: Skylands Stadium’s Light Show and Christmas Village (photo courtesy of Sussex County Chamber of Commerce)

Christmas Markets

The German Christmas Market of New Jersey

Enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of a German Christmas Market at Sussex County Fairground. The largest Christmas market in New Jersey, where you can visit over 100 vendors located in the authentic wooden huts, enjoy Christmas entertainment, food, Christmas lights and displays, Santa visits, wagon rides and a fairground. Taking place on 2nd to 4th of December. Read more here.

Christmas Train & Trolley Rides

Cape May’s Trolley Rides

The charming Victorian town of Cape May is the perfect destination for immersing yourself in the Christmas Spirit. A number of festival trolley tours are put on over the festive season, these include Santa’s Trolley Ride where Mrs. Claus takes to the wheel as she shares Christmas stories and songs and The Holiday Lights Trolley Ride which tours the historic streets of Cape May teaching guests about the history of many of the Christmas traditions of today.

Phillipsburg’s Polar Express Christmas Train

This one hour, 45-minute vintage train excursion along the Delaware River is inspired by the hit movie and the award-winning book by Chris Van Allsburg. A hugely popular family Christmas event that includes storytelling, Christmas sing-alongs, performances and a meeting with Santa himself. For more information click here.

Parades

Christmas Parade, Ocean City

Ocean City’s 2022 Christmas Parade will take place on Friday, 2nds December 2nd, going down Asbury Avenue beginning at 6th street and ending at 12th street. This wonderful family friendly parade includes floats, musical acts, dance and cheers teams. Click here for more information.

Greater Wildwood Jaycees Christmas Parade

The popular Jaycee Christmas Parade takes place on 2nd December, starting at 6pm, the parade is followed by a Tree Lighting Ceremony & Parade Awards. Click here to read more.

Walking Tours

Cape May Candlelit House Tours

This tour has been a beloved annual tradition in America’s only National Historic Landmark City since 1974. Celebrating the best of Cape May at Christmas, the tour travels through Cape May’s gaslit streets, giving guests the chance to hear musicians and carollers, and visit more than a dozen homes, inns, B&Bs, churches and hotels and see both Victorian and more modern interiors beautifully decorated for the Christmas season. Click here to read more.

Christmas Shows

Cirque Dreams Holidaze, Atlantic City

A specially themed holiday show, Holidaze sees various Christmas ornaments magicked to life as the seasoned troupe of acrobats and singers perform a Broadway-style musical infused with contemporary circus. The show takes place at the Ovation Hall at Ocean Casino Resort on 11th December. More information here.

Above: Atlantic City’s Cirque Dreams Holidaze (image courtesy of Visit AC)

Christmas Shopping

A shopper’s paradise, New Jersey is home to more malls per square mile than any other U.S. state. With the exchange rate not being in our favour at the moment, bargain shopping is all the more important so it is great to know that there are a number of discount outlets throughout New Jersey so you can make your pound stretch a little further.

The Mills at Jersey Gardens is New Jersey’s largest outlet mall with more than 200 stores located just five minutes from Newark Liberty International Airport is makes a great stop off on your way home. Jersey Shore Premium Outlets, Tinton Falls has 120 outlet stores and Tanger Outlets in Atlantic City has more than 90 brand name outlets offering 20 to 40 percent below retail prices. For more information on Christmas shopping in New Jersey click here.

Above: Jersey Shore Premium Outlets (Photo courtesy of Monmouth County Tourism)

To start planning a New Jersey holiday, visit www.visitnj.org

Follow the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for more events and news throughout the state.

ENDS

About New Jersey
New Jersey provides a wide variety of experiences to visitors all year long. Travellers can enjoy outdoor adventures, renowned culinary offerings, educational opportunities, and a strong arts and cultural scene. With numerous state and national parks, beaches, skiing, tax-free shopping, historic sites, museums and more, New Jersey blends together its rich history and exciting present. Home to the nation’s first beach resorts and the birthplace of major inventions, New Jersey offers picturesque escape opportunities for all ages. For more information, explore VisitNJ.org.

UK PR Contact:
Greg Evans Consultancy
Anna Watt, PR Director, [email protected], 07815 898995

EXPLORE NEW JERSEY ON SCREEN

The US state of New Jersey has attracted film crews for decades with its diverse landscapes providing the perfect backdrop for any film genre, from vibrant cities to serene suburbs, wide sand beaches to dense forests, farm land, rambling rivers, mountains, historic buildings, botanical gardens and everything in between. Add to the fact that its location is served conveniently by air and road, the state offers film and television production tax credit and it boasts state of the art studio space and it’s the ideal choice of location, something recently highlighted in Variety Magazine.

There is a long list of great movies and TV shows filmed in New Jersey and fans can experience the locations their favourite show or films were set in when they visit. Here we take a look at just a few of the blockbusters filmed in the Garden State:

Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated new movie West Side Story was released in UK cinemas last week (10th December). An adaptation of the 1957 musical, West Side Story explores forbidden love and the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. Many of the filming locations were in the state of New Jersey, including Paterson, Newark and other parts of Essex County NJ.

New Jersey is well known as being the setting for the popular TV series The Sopranos, which follows Tony Soprano, an Italian-American mafia head who struggles to manage his family and criminal life. The series started in 1999 and ran until 2007. Fans flock to the show’s locations including the Soprano’s mansion, Asbury Park boardwalk, which appeared in Tony’s dreams and flashbacks and even the Bada Bing strip club, these any many other recognisable locations can be visited independently or on an organised tour. Read more here.

The Many Saints of Newark, The Sopranos prequel was released in September this year, follows a young Anthony Soprano growing up in 1960’s Newark, one of the most tumultuous eras in the city’s history. The movie was shot in Newark itself, as well as other Jersey towns such as Bloomfield, Jersey City, and Paterson, however several spots in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Yonkers stood in for 1960s Jersey.

In the 2019 movie The Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, New York and New Jersey locations are knitted together to create fictional Gotham City. Newark’s Market Street plays a prominent role in the opening scene and Loew’s Jersey Theatre in Jersey City’s Journal Square and William J. Brennan Courthouse on Newark Avenue can also be spotted in the film.

Bruised, is the highly-anticipated female-led movie starring and directed by Hollywood legend Halle Berry tells the story of a failed MMA fighter who has one last shot at redemption when the young son she left behind comes back into her life. Filmed entirely in New Jersey, namely in Atlantic City and Newark, the movie launched on Netflix on 24th November this year.

Nominated for two Oscars, 2008 movie The Wrestler stars Mickey Rourke as a retired wrestler and was filmed throughout New Jersey in locations including Asbury Park, Elizabeth, Rahway, Garfield, Hasbrouck Heights, Linden, Roselle Park and Dover.

80’s comedy classic Big, starring Tom Hanks has many locations in New Jersey. The carnival that houses the mystical Zoltar was in New Jersey’s historic film town, Fort Lee. The school, drugstore and the houses of Josh and Billy are all located in Cliffside Park.

The 2002 emotional and Oscar-winning drama A Beautiful Mind based on the life of the American mathematician John Nash, staring Russel Crowe, Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly, was filmed at Princeton University and Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison. Scenes were also filmed in Jersey City, Belleville, Newark and East Orange.

For more information or to start planning a New Jersey holiday, visit www.visitnj.org

Follow the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for more events and news throughout the state.

ENDS

About New Jersey
New Jersey provides a wide variety of experiences to visitors all year long. Travellers can enjoy outdoor adventures, renowned culinary offerings, educational opportunities, and a strong arts and cultural scene. With numerous state and national parks, beaches, skiing, tax-free shopping, historic sites, museums and more, New Jersey blends together its rich history and exciting present. Home to the nation’s first beach resorts and the birthplace of major inventions, New Jersey offers picturesque escape opportunities for all ages. For more information, explore VisitNJ.org.

PR Contact:
Greg Evans Consultancy
Anna Watt, PR Director [email protected] 07815 898995