White lights and sparkling baubles.

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The Christmas tree in the lobby of Little Rock’s Capital Hotel, named among the 10 most dazzling this year by Forbes Travel Guide. I second that.

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A lovely gingerbread village with royal icing snow and working Christmas lights, around which a train chugs and travels through a tunnel. Need to find your inner child? She’s here, standing by the train tracks, entranced.

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Tales From the South reader series, often preceded by toe-tapping country swing music by the Salty Dogs, recorded for international broadcast by National Public Radio. All female hearts in the room this night fluttered when the dapper gentleman here, smiling coyly, crooked a finger at a pretty young woman, inviting her to be his dance partner for a lively number, and afterwards, when he escorted her back to her seat (which he pulled out for her, of course). This goes on most Tuesday nights at the Starving Artist Café in North Little Rock. Enjoy a nice dinner first, then sit back for the show. Tickets are $7.50. Can you handle so much wonderfulness?

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Christmas crackers, with all their punny jokes and dumb prizes and flimsy paper crowns. I love ’em. Buy a box today, and put one at each place setting for Christmas dinner. Merriment happens.

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Trace Adkins singing “The Wexford Carol” on his new album, The King’s Gift. His resonant baritone, accompanied by soaring fiddles, drums, and keening uilleann pipes, stirs my Celtic blood. Seems like a walk on the moor followed by a pint and a peat fire is called for. Or this.