VanRamblings’ updated 2020 Holiday Lights Tour covers the entirety of the Metro Vancouver region, starting in Vancouver & the North Shore, but now including Burnaby, the Tri-Cities / Coquitlam, Surrey / North Delta, and Richmond. No one says that the Holiday Season Lights Tour must be a single-night event — if you wanted to, you could do a two, three or four night holiday lights tour, at a pace comfortable for you and your family.

You could also do a walking tour. The area around Gravely & Commercial Drive and out to 12th and Semlin would make for a good walking tour of holiday lights. According to Environment Canada, the weather on the three days before Christmas Day will be nippy, but clear, and perfect for a walking tour if you bundle up. In addition, the area around Main and Broadway has great holiday light displays within walking distance of one another.

The Holiday Lights Tour Guide will be updated over the holidays.

We’re going to begin our Holiday Lights Tour on Vancouver’s east side.

First stop …

Holiday Lights, 100 block Victoria Drive, Vancouver. Videographer: Ken Jason Dundas.

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2702 Kitchener Street, at Slocan; from the 2400 block of Kitchener to the 2700 block there are a number of wonderful holiday light displays, such as this one …

2621 Kitchener Street

3163 East 16th Avenue

Next it’s up to the Killarney area …

3168 East 46th Avenue

Now, you’re going to have to decide whether you want to travel over to 6080 Ross Street, which is near 41st and Knight, a ways out of the way, 6080 Ross Street

And then it’s over to the Renfrew Collingwood neighourhood …

3540 / 3542 Price Street, near Rupert Street

3191 East 22nd Avenue , at Windermere

East 18th Avenue and Renfrew Street

East 16th and Kaslo Street

Kaslo Court and Kaslo Terrace, 2765 Co-operative Way, just off the Grandview Highway, nearby the Italian Cultural Centre

Lakewood and East 5th Avenue

2500 block Kitchener Street | a gentrified block, almost all new, maxed out to 2400 sq. ft. homes — a well-kept street, though.

1800 block Grant & Kitchener, surrounding Grandview Park, including on Salsbury Drive, just off Victoria Drive

Grant Street and Semlin Drive

2008 Victoria Drive, at 4th Avenue

Victoria Drive and East 7th Avenue

Victoria Street and East 8th Avenue

Commercial Drive and 6th Avenue

2002 East 12th Avenue, at Semlin Drive

3542 Ontario, at 17th and Ontario

2930 Ontario Street

Group of homes between 14th & 15th on Ontario, 2800 to 3000 block

And further afield, close to the Fraser River, in the southeastern part of the city, in the Marpole neighbourhood, there’s 2597 East Kent Avenue North.

351 W 22nd Avenue (near Cambie and 18th)

Now, we have some good news: the Canuck Place Children’s Hospice, celebrating its 25th anniversary, is open to the public, so that’s definitely on the 2020 Holiday Lights Tour.

Canuck Place is located at 1690 Matthews, which is about three blocks south of 16th Avenue and Granville — just turn right onto Matthews, drive a couple of blocks, and voilà, the spectacular, not-to-be-missed Canuck Place Children’s Hospice Christmas Lights Display!

Canuck Place Children’s Hospice Christmas Lights Display, 1690 Matthews Avenue.

After walking around Canuck Place we’ll stay on Vancouver’s west side, driving into the Arbutus Ridge area …

351 West 22nd Avenue (near Cambie and 18th)

King Edward and Valley Drive, near Arbutus Village

3708 West 27th Avenue

4690 Blenheim Street

The lights of Vancouver and the North Shore, as seen from Puget Drive, in Vancouver

2195 West 15th Avenue

Next, it’s to VanRamblings’ home neighbourhood …

2915 Waterloo Street, at 13th Avenue, on the southwest corner

West 12th Avenue and Blenheim Street, NE corner

West 12th Avenue and Blenheim Street, NW corner

2760 Waterloo Street, east side of the street, near West 12th Avenue

Near West 11th Avenue, on Waterloo Street, in Kitsilano.

Next, it’s a drive down to Jericho Beach, to see the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club (above) all lit up. And then for a walk down Point Grey Road.

Hastings Mill Park, east of both the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club and Jericho Beach, next to Hastings Mill, and down from Alma Street

The photo below, Lululemon founder Chip Wilson’s home, along Point Grey Road between Alma and Macdonald streets where there are many holiday light homes to be discovered. Great for a walking tour.

</ br>The The photo directly above was taken by photographer Elvira Lount, who tells us there are great many more holiday lit homes along Point Grey Road, as may be seen in on her Facebook timeline.

And now doubling back a bit to return to Waterloo Street, at 5th Avenue …

West 5th Avenue & Waterloo Street, across the street from McBride Park

West 5th Avenue and Balaclava

In fact, the whole stretch of Stephens Street, from West 5th Avenue to Broadway — including the avenues along Stephens, on both sides — offers wondrous light displays.

West 5th Avenue and Stephens Street

Next, on the second leg of the 2020 Holiday Lights Tour (it breaks down into four parts), we drive down the hill to enjoy Granville Island’s Festive Lights Display, with a drive around the Island.

Entrance to Granville Island

And now a photo of the Burrard Street bridge and Beach Avenue, taken from Granville Island, a site not to be missed when visiting the Island …

After Granville Island’s Festive Lights Display, we’ll drive over the Burrard Street bridge, and head over to …

Bute and Nelson (and you’ll want to see St. Paul’s holiday lights, too)

Hotels: In the EVO car we’ll be renting this year, as we have in past years (we can’t wait until they start adding electric vehicles to their low emission fleet), we’ll park — for free, cuz that’s the deal EVO has cut with the city — somewhere near Sutton Place, kitty corner to the Scotiabank Cinema at Burrard and Smithe, and embark on our tour of the downtown hotels.

The Sutton Place Hotel (formerly Le Meridien), on Burrard Street

In years past, back in the 90s, when we were an arts and entertainment editor for various newspapers and magazines, we discovered that the downtown hotels go out of their way to put up first-class holiday displays in their lobbies … so, as we’ve done for the past quarter century, we’ll start off at the Sutton Place Hotel on Burrard, and then saunter down to the Hyatt Regency, at Burrard and Georgia where there’ll be trees but unfortunately, due to COVID-19 restrictions there’ll be no gingerbread displays made by students at public and private schools, and post secondary institutions, as in years past.

Gingerbread Lane at the Hyatt will return during the holiday season, in 2021

Next, it’s over to the Hotel Vancouver, and then up the street to the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, and then back to our EVO car.

We’ll then drive to the Pan Pacific / Fairmont Waterfront Hotel. As much as we love wandering through both those hotels, the real rationale in parking near those hotels comes with 2 engaging features: the walkway along the west side of Canada Place, and the annual Woodwards windows displays — which, sad to say, is not happening this year due to COVID-19 restrictions.

After we’ve enjoyed the nippy air along the Canada Place walkway, we’ll wander over to the Pan Pacific and Fairmont Waterfront, before heading out again. Ordinarily, we’d drive next to Poole Plaza for the Christmas Market, but it’s been postponed to 2021, so instead we’ll drive next to English Bay to see the lights city staff place on the trees along Pacific Avenue, after which we’ll drive along Denman Street towards Stanley Park, for a drive around the park. Ordinarily, we’d stop off at the Vancouver Fire Department’s Burn Fund Bright Nights Display (with a $10 bill ready to put into the pot) — but that’s not happening in 2020 due to COVID-19.

All and all, Bright Nights is very popular, and just jam-packed, so it seems that it’s fitting that it’s closed in 2020 … so a leisurely drive around Stanley Park (stopping for awhile at Brockton Point) it’ll be, moving onto the roadway just this side of Prospect Point to get onto the exit leading to the Lions Gate Bridge, after which we’ll take the enjoyable drive out to Horseshoe Bay, where we can see the lights of the Metro Vancouver region. In years past, at Megan’s insistence, we’d also enjoy the holiday light displays in the British Properties (little wonder, I sometimes think to myself, that Megan has turned into such a bougie woman, mother & wife at 43 years of age).

On the way back from Horseshoe Bay, we’ll take the lower road, to enjoy the closeness to the water. VanRamblings employs the royal “we”, but in fact for the first time in 50 years, “we” may consist solely of Raymond Neil Tomlin, given the exigencies of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our ever smaller bubble — which, sad to say, does not include my children. Alas.

Next up, it’s the Dundarave Festival of Lights, which as the good folks at The Daily Hive point out “offers BC’s biggest outdoor display of Christmas trees.” By this time, we’ll be famished, so it’ll be time for a bite to eat. Last year, on our Christmas Eve lights tour, a friend and I stopped off at the Park Royal Cactus Club Cafe, where we shared mini burgers, yam fries, with me enjoying a cup of clam chowder, and my friend a small Caesar salad.

By now, it’ll be about 8:30pm (we began our holiday lights tour trek just before 2:30pm, from our west side Kitsilano home), and we’re patting ourselves on the back for having completed legs two and three of our annual, of late, spectacular and revivifying four leg holiday lights tour.

Reporter Elisia Sleeber at the North Shore News has compiled a definitive of the 2020 holiday light displays in North Vancouver.

1279 Keith Road

1382 Wellington Drive, Lynn Valley

Henderson and Burrill Avenues, Lynn Valley

1512 Ross Road

423 East 10th Street

2308 Hoskins Road

3698 Sparrow Lane

2235 Badger Road

You can create your own multi-address route guide by clicking on this video to discover how, which is what we did with the addresses directly above.

The Trinity Street Light Festival and competition in East Vancouver stretches six blocks across the Hastings-Sunrise enclave of Burrardview, the often dazzling light displays strung up by neighbours has been a glowing holiday fixture since 2000. A must-not miss.

Now, it’s over the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge to Trinity Street, on Vancouver’s east side, near the waterfront — depending on how tuckered we are, we may walk the entire length, rather than drive along the street.

There are many, many more light displays throughout Burnaby, the Tri-Cities / Coquitlam, Surrey-North Delta and Richmond, some of which may be found not only in the links below, but covered on VanRamblings, as well.

News1130 | 2020 Christmas Lights and Virtual Events Spotter.

Vancouver Sun | Vancouver Sun’s annual holiday lights map

To Do Canada | Christmas Lights & Holiday Displays In & Around Vancouver

VanRamblings’ best to all of our readers during this most festive season. May you thrive this holiday season, and over the course of this most unusual pandemic holiday season find much love and solace in your life.

Now: Burnaby, Coquitlam, Surrey-North Delta, Langley + Richmond.

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