Galveston Holds a Dickens of a Christmas Party

It’s a safe bet that today in this island city, hundreds of volunteers are working to transform the gaslit National Historic Landmark District at Strand and Mechanic streets into a backdrop for next weekend’s annual eruption of Dickensiana, Galveston’s “Dickens on The Strand” festival.

Then, beginning Friday evening, Dec. 6, and continuing until the town crier has cleared the streets for the last time next Sunday, the 17 blocks of the district will become one giant street theater, with thousands of visitors and, seemingly everywhere you look, a scene straight out of 19th-Century England.

Dickens on The Strand kicks off the holiday season in this atmospheric Southern port city, and last year drew 163,000 costumed and uncostumed visitors (members of the Galveston Historical Foundation say proudly that the costumed contingent grows every year). The streets bustle with characters straight out of Charles Dickens: with Fagins and Artful Dodgers and Oliver Twists, with bobbies and pickpockets and urchins. Top hats, knickers, capes and bonnets abound; taffeta rustles and frock coats flaunt. And in the midst of all the elegant ladies and gentlemen are seven stages with tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, mimes and puppeteers.

Vendors hawk everything from crafts to hot roasted chestnuts, and Daughters of the British Empire tempt you with English goodies. Even the restaurants go British for the occasion. But don’t worry, it’s not all plum pudding and Scotch eggs. After all, Galveston has its own fleet of shrimp boats, and offers excellent fresh seafood year-round.

It’s delightful, very British and everyone in costume enters free. Only Scrooges and other unsporting characters are obliged to pay their dues: $6 for adults at the gate and half that for seniors and children.

With any luck this year, the weather will be mild and sunny, just as it was when my husband and I were there last year: perfect for enjoying the sights, sounds and smells, not only of the festival, but of the city’s historic homes, museums, shops and boutiques. The Texas Seaport Museum, for example, sits on Galveston’s historic waterfront only a block from The Strand (there’s a street in London of the same name). Nearby, at Pier 21, the proud 1877 tall ship Elissa displays her sails. She became well known during the 1986 Statue of Liberty Centennial Parade of Sail in New York Harbor.

The whole historic area bordering the waterfront is beautifully decorated for the occasion. Fresh greenery, gold ornaments and huge red bows adorn restored gaslights and drape the streets. Live music from bagpipes and trumpets, dulcimers and tambourines fills the air. Cars are banned in the festival area, returning the historic district, once again, to the horse-drawn carriage. Some of the animals about town are huge 2,000-pound Budweiser Clydesdales, others the miniature horses bred in Texas. A rail trolley delivers festival-goers from the beachfront, where most of the major hotels are, to the event area.

According to the Historical Foundation, which has sponsored every Dickens festival since the first one 17 years ago (it was called a “Dickens Evening” and featured a covered-dish picnic on The Strand provided by the members of the foundation), the passionate history of this 150-year-old city and the opulent architecture of the Historic District provide the perfect milieu and backdrop for celebrating this “best of times.”

The notorious pirate Jean Lafitte actually became the unwitting founder of Galveston when he used the island in the Gulf of Mexico (the city is connected to the mainland only by a two-mile causeway) as a stronghold in the early 1800s. But conditions changed rapidly. What had been a mere hide-out for buccaneers a few decades earlier grew into Texas’ largest and richest city almost overnight.

By the mid-1800s, the place was jumping. Its natural deep-water port teemed with ships. Schooners, sloops and steamboats arrived daily, unloaded large numbers of people and manufactured goods, and filled their holds with cotton, hides and sugar from a young and booming Texas.

Galveston became the most important entry port for immigrants south of New York. Thousands decided to stay in town. The city was bursting out of its seams. It had a flamboyant, cosmopolitan air, and was a regular Babel of languages.

Commercial success produced not only the filigreed, iron-front, Victorian architecture of The Strand--which soon became known as the “Wall Street of the Southwest”--but also a hunger for culture and refinement that led to the building of hundreds of elegant homes, mansions and a grand opera.

More than 550 of the most impressive of these residential and commercial Victorians survive and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Thanks to the utterly determined efforts of the Historical Foundation, many have been restored, and some, such as Ashton Villa, The Bishop’s Palace (one-time residence of the bishop of the Houston-Galveston Diocese) and the Moody Mansion, are open to visitors.

In addition to the general outdoor pageant, special events are sprinkled through the weekend calendar. There are candlelight tours of selected historical mansions not open to visitors during the rest of the year. A staging of Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol,” begins Friday at The Grand 1894 Opera House, with tickets going for $17.50. One can watch a beach race with the participants in Victorian costume, or begin the day with morning tea in the elegant ballroom of the circa-1859 Ashton Villa, eight blocks from The Strand (reservations highly recommended).

And then, three days later, the great fun is over. It’s still two weeks until Christmas and Galveston, port city with character and a raucous, romantic past, grows quiet and intimate.

The off-season lull lasts until February, when the vibrant days of Mardi Gras attract new crowds and warm weather begins to fill the beaches.

Depending on what you are looking for, these peaceful weeks from mid-December to February can offer a wonderful vacation experience. They did for us. All the pretty Christmas decorations remain, and we enjoyed the town as if we owned the place. The few other visitors who had the same splendid idea of staying on gave a knowing smile whenever we crossed paths.

Again, with luck, it will still be mild and sunny; in the 70s, perhaps. Galveston is 45 miles southeast of Houston, not as far south as Florida, but with plenty of old palm trees to prove its proximity to the subtropics.

After a leisurely exploration of the historic district, the harbor and the seawall, we splurged on shrimp and sea trout fresh off the boat on the wharfs, and had a drink at the elegantly restored Tremont House hotel, built in 1839, on Mechanic Street in the Historic District. It was there, at a 1880 banquet in honor of former President Ulysses S. Grant, that Union Gen. Phil Sheridan apologized for his remark that if he owned hell and Texas, he would rent out Texas and keep hell. For our vacation, we had traded houses with a Galveston resident, using a Phoenix-based house-swapping service, but there are quite a few large and small hotels, inns and B&Bs; in Galveston. Although most will be solidly booked now.

One can linger over cappuccino and warm New Orleans beignets at the charming Phoenix Bakery, within walking distance of the Tremont House; treat oneself to lunch at the luxurious San Luis Hotel on the beachfront at Seawall Boulevard, and dine at the truly excellent Wentletrap Restaurant on The Strand.

The night we had a festive dinner at Wentletrap, the waiter forgot to charge for the desserts. We pointed it out to him, but after a brief word with the management he came back, grinned and said that honesty must be rewarded: Desserts were on the house. On another day, after lunch at the San Luis--its Maximillian’s is a gracious dinner restaurant--we soaked up sun outside at the pool, set in a palm-tree forest. We had the pool and million-dollar view of the ocean all to ourselves--just a few of the compensations we found in friendly Galveston during the Christmastime off season.

But there is more. During the winter months, the marshes on Galveston Bay and the Gulf Coast teem with a large variety of migratory waterfowl. There are great drifts of egrets, white herons and pelicans, and on warm days alligators sun themselves at the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, about 40 miles north of Galveston. It can be reached by taking the free ferry from the east end of Galveston to Bolivar Peninsula.

And then there are the beaches: 50 miles of clean, white, shell-strewn, empty beaches on the island and on the coast. All we encountered were screeching gulls, pelicans, some people on horseback, walkers and surf fishermen. A little typical--and a little atypical--of the fishermen we met was a regular who identified himself as Papa Earl, from Decker Prairie.

A Texas legend, he told us that he makes his living through commercial angling, but Papa Earl’s business is in the back of his pickup truck. He doesn’t own a boat or any other gear except his fishing rods.

It was typical of our sojourn in Galveston--a place where Caribbean pirate days, the gaslight society of 19th-Century America, Charles Dickens’ London, and the Gulf’s individualistic, melting-pot culture blend to a perfectly fascinating whole.

GUIDEBOOK: Galveston

Getting there: Galveston is 45 miles southeast of Houston. Continental offers nonstop service from LAX to Houston’s Intercontinental Airport. Until Jan. 6, round-trip fare is $298, with 21-day advance purchase. Southwest also has nonstop flights from LAX to the city’s other major airport, Hobby. Round-trip fare is $298, with 21-day advance. From Houston, Galveston is an hour’s drive southeast on the Gulf Freeway.

Transportation: The festive Galveston Island Rail Trolley, whose red-and-green cars are decked in garlands and wreaths for the Dickens on The Strand Weekend, offers round-trip service to The Strand from the Moody Civic Center at the trolley’s South Terminal. Cost is $2 per person. The Dickens Shuttle Service provides round-trip transportation for $2 per person to The Strand from three locations--the Galvez Mall, K-Mart (65th and Stewart Road) and Port Holiday Mall. Some beachfront hotels also offer shuttle service.

Accommodations: The Tremont House hotel, 2300 Ship’s Mechanic Row, Galveston, Tex. 77551, (409) 763-0300; prices range from $80-$130. Also recommended are the San Luis Hotel, 5222 Seawall Blvd., Galveston 77551, (409) 744-1500, $104-$160 double, and the Hotel Galvez, 2024 Seawall Blvd., Galveston 77550, (409) 765-7721, $68-$120 double.

Restaurants: Gaido’s Seafood Restaurant, 3828 Seawall Blvd., (409) 762-9625, is considered by some to be Galveston’s best. Also recommended is the Wentletrap Restaurant, 2301 The Strand, (409) 765-5545. Various other restaurants and tearooms offer Dickensian fare such as oysters, bangers, roasted chestnuts and plum pudding. Morning tea is served at the fashionable Ashton Villa, 2328 Broadway, (409) 762-3933.

Planning ahead: Next year, Dickens on The Strand will be held Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 5-6.

For more information: Contact the Galveston Historical Foundation through The Strand Visitors Center, 2016 Strand, Galveston Island, Tex. 77550, (409) 765-7834 or (713) 280-3907. Or the Convention and Visitor Bureau, 2106 Seawall Blvd., Galveston, Tex. 77550, (800) 351-4237.