Key West

The Holidays Key West Style

On New Year's Eve, Key West celebrates the turning of the calendar page with three separate ceremonies that parody New York's dropping-of-the-ball drama. Here they let fall a 6-foot conch shell from Sloppy Joe's Bar, a pirate wench from the towering mast of a tall ship at the Historic Seaport, and a drag queen (elegantly decked out in a ball gown and riding an oversize red high-heel shoe) at Bourbon Street Pub. You wouldn't expect any less from America's most outrageous city.

Key West is one of the nation's biggest party towns, so the celebrations here take on a colorful hue. In keeping with Key West's rich maritime heritage, its monthlong Bight Before Christmas begins Thanksgiving Eve at Key West Bight. The Lighted Boat Parade creates a quintessential Florida spectacle with fanciful fireworks, live music, and decorated vessels of all shapes and sizes.

Some years, Tennessee Williams Theatre stages a Key West version of Nutcracker Suite. In this unorthodox retelling, the heroine sails the Lemonade Sea to a coral reef and is submerged in a diving bell (hold the sugarplum fairies). Between Christmas and New Year's Day, the Holiday House and Garden Tour is another yuletide tradition.