The design is fairy-tale cottage, Gambone said, and is the first part of an ongoing holiday observation at the luxury hotel 75 miles east of Atlanta. On Wednesday, the hotel will host its sixth annual Lighting of the Lodge, when some 1.2 million lights will illuminate the 251-room hotel on the shores of Lake Oconee, said Sandyn Shaw, public relations manager.
"They started stringing the lights in August; they go all around the hotel exterior, in the trees, on the grounds. It's just a massive display of white lights," Shaw said.
The public is invited to take part in the lighting celebration, and the hotel will make a donation to Greensboro Dreamers, part of the international I Have a Dream Foundation. Last year, the hotel gave $30,000 to the nonprofit organization, Shaw said.
On Thanksgiving Day, the hotel is scheduled to host a brunch that includes a Chef's Challenge that will allow diners to be judges.
"Antony Fernandez, our executive pastry chef and an entrant in the 2009 World Pastry Competition, is making a gigantic showpiece of chocolate to award the winner," Gambone said of the contest, which is new this year.
Continuing the holiday celebration will be Christmas Across the USA at a Christmas Day brunch. A giant map of the United States will be laid out across the floor of the ballroom, and diners will get handouts explaining where the food they're eating is from.
"You could be sitting on the New Mexico part of the map, for example, and be eating New England clam chowder," Gambone said. "It's a celebration of American food; it'll be a lot of fun."
New Year's Eve will run hot and cold - literally, Gambone said. Dubbed Fire and Ice, the party ballroom will be divided by a diaphanous fabric, with one side of the room bedecked in thermally thematic reds and oranges, the other blacks, blues, and whites.
"We'll have two huge luges carved out of ice holding giant martini glasses," Gambone said. "We'll have red- and blue-colored martinis swirling down from them into glasses for people to drink."
