Christmas trees, gingerbread houses and holiday attractions

Gingerbread houses, dazzling light displays and Christmas trees made of macarons and recycled bottles are among this season's holiday attractions.

The tree at Rockefeller Center is one of New York's most famous Christmas traditions but there are many others: the Rockettes at the Radio City Christmas Spectacular; the Neapolitan Baroque crèche at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the origami tree at the American Museum of Natural History, and store window displays at Macy's, Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and other retailers.

Head to the city's outer boroughs for the New York Botanical Garden's holiday train show in the Bronx, with model trains chugging past replicas of landmarks; the Christmas Lights Tour of Brooklyn's Dyker Heights neighborhood, offered by A Slice of Brooklyn Bus Tours; and a gingerbread village with 1,050 gingerbread houses at the New York Hall of Science in Queens.

Other Universal events inspired by the Dr. Seuss classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" include story time with Cindy-Lou Who, cookie decorating and ornament decorating.

In Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, Dollywood's Smoky Mountain Christmas offers 4 million lights, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and shows including "An Appalachian Christmas," "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," and "A Christmas Carol" that uses holograms to conjure Dolly Parton onstage as the Ghost of Christmas Past.

In Asheville, North Carolina, the historic, 250-room Biltmore House displays a 34-foot tree in the Banquet Hall, with a 55-foot Norway spruce lit up outside by 45,000 tiny white lights.

Activities and events include Candlelight Christmas Evenings, daily seminars on decorating with wreaths and creating holiday "tablescapes," wine tastings and visits with Santa.