GALVESTON — Galveston Historical Foundation will stage its annual Dickens on The Strand Victorian Holiday Festival on the first weekend of December.
Last December, only three months after Hurricane Ike, much of the downtown Strand Historic Landmark District was still vacant and gutted. The area was flooded by a 10- to 13-foot storm surge when the storm came ashore Sept. 13, 2008.
But Galvestonians interrupted the work of rebuilding to join the historical foundation in the first large-scale public event in Galveston after the devastating storm.
This year’s Dickens on The Strand will be a celebration of what has been accomplished after a year of rebuilding.
This year, with the recent reopening of the historic Tremont Hotel on Ship’s Mechanic Row, as well as the return of nearly all Galveston’s downtown commercial establishments, the festival gates will include both The Strand and Mechanic Street.
Costumed entertainers and visitors, hundreds of volunteers, vendors, craftspeople and musicians will fill those 10 blocks with color and cheer, with three parades led by Queen Victoria and her entourage.
Dickens on The Strand originated in 1973 as an evening potluck celebration of Galveston’s historic downtown, including re-enactments from Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol.”
The event was to bring people back into a 19th-century downtown that had been neglected for decades so they could see firsthand restoration efforts and participate in a celebration focused on Galveston’s Victorian heritage.
In those early days, the festival was held at night, and the empty commercial buildings were lit with lanterns.
“In the beginning with Dickens, the whole point was to bring attention to the architecture of downtown,” Clay Wade, director of events for the historical foundation, said.
Downtown Galveston has one of the largest collections of restored 19th-century iron-front commercial buildings in the country.
In the years since the first Dickens on The Strand in 1973, these buildings had been largely restored, and by 2007, The Strand had become the focal point of a thriving heritage tourism industry.
In 2009, Galveston’s cast iron architecture is again threatened, this time by corrosive rust that was exacerbated by Hurricane Ike’s toxic, salty floodwaters.
The downtown was added to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2009 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
The Dickens festival, as it has in years past, will offer visitors the opportunity to contribute to the downtown’s restoration.
Several new features have been planned for this year, including Victorian bed races and a Dickens’ Dream Exhibit from the Charles Dickens Museum in London.
Author Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, great-great-great-granddaughter of author Charles Dickens, will attend the festival and sign books for sale to the public.
A Dickens Emporium will feature a wide array of products featuring the art from the painting “Dickens’ Dream,” which is the headline feature of the special exhibit from London.
Pickwick’s Lanternlight Parade will return in 2009. All 400 of the kerosene lanterns used for the parade were lost to the floodwaters of Ike, and last year’s parade had to be canceled.
Dickens on The Strand is the main annual fundraising event of the historical foundation.
The festival has been named one of the top 10 events in the state of Texas by Texas Highways Magazine and one of the top 100 events in North America by the American Bus Association.
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At a glance
WHAT: Dickens on The Strand
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Dec. 5 and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 6.
WHERE: The Strand area in downtown Galveston
TICKETS: available at www.dickensonthestrand.org.
Special events
Special events in conjunction with the downtown festival are set for Dec. 4-6 in historic sites throughout the island. They include:
• Victorian Hand Bell Concerts at the 1859 St. Joseph’s Church Museum
• A Dickens Feast at the 1880 Garten Verein
• English Country Breakfasts at the 1859 Ashton Villa
• Christmas at the Oaks Tour of Galveston’s oldest residence, the 1838 Michel Menard House
• Dickens of a Tour of 1892 Bishop’s Palace
• Restoration in progress tour of 1859 Ashton Villa, which was damaged by the hurricane
