The holidays are steeped in tradition and history as people seek connections to their past, as they look toward the unknowns borne by the New Year. The weeks to come will be filled with traditions, both large and small, from cultures around the world.

Tacoma, too, is filled with historical events, rooted in our own traditions or echoing the traditions of long ago.

Annual Holiday Tree Lighting

Tacoma Tree Lighting
Tacoma’s treelighting ceremony has been a tradition since World War II. Photo courtesy: Courtesy of Broadway Center/Chip Van Gilder

Chief among Tacoma’s traditions will be the 71st Annual Holiday Tree Lighting at 5:00 p.m. on November 26 at the city’s official tree at the corner of 9th and Broadway right outside the Pantages Theater, following a special sing-along screening of “The Sound of Music.” Neighbors, family members and strangers have gathered to mark the start of the holiday season on the spot since World War II for what has become a must-attend event for generations.

Fort Nisqually

But some events dig farther back into the region’s history, namely the holiday happenings at Fort Nisqually and Fort Steilacoom. The forts have complementary holiday events to provide modern visitors with views from the past via a mix of entertainment and education. Fort Nisqually’s event will be held December 3, while Fort Steilacoom’s event is set for December 10. The museum associations that operate the independent historical sites coordinate what years they will portray using a three-year cycle during their years of operation.

Fort Nisqually Christmas
Fort Nisqually adds old English traditions to the landscape. Photo courtesy: MetroParks.

This year’s shared date is 1859, as the Civil War looms between the North and the South and the wounds of hostilities between settlers and local Native Americans are still healing. The Pig War, between England and America, had also boiled up that summer, when an American settler shot a pig owned by a British settler in the San Juan Islands.

Fort Nisqually was a British-run trading post for the Hudson’s Bay Company during the pioneering era of the 1830-1860s at a time when Fort Steilacoom operated as a military post for U.S. soldiers, sent to protect the interests of the rising tide of American settlers flooding to the area.

Lawrence Bateman is a local historian and reenactor, who will volunteer his time at both living history events this year as he has for the last 10 years or so.

“It really helps that the forts were operating at the same time,” he says.

Visitors to the Fort Nisqually event can see him strolling, drilling and marching around the British fort, which American soldiers were sent to protect. But all is not gloom and doom, as fort residents celebrate the yule log with toasts and Christmas carols, and debate the politics of the day for modern-day visitors to eavesdrop upon.

The event is well rooted in history as Fort Nisqually’s manager regularly gave “the best rations the place could afford” — typically meat, flour, molasses, sugar and tallow — to the Fort’s laborers. The Native Americans named the holiday “Hyas Sunday,” Chinook jargon for “Big Sunday.” Dancing and singing were recorded in the fort’s historical journals and will come alive at the event.

Fort Steilacoom

Fort Steilacoom
Fort Steilacoom served as the first post in what is now Washington state. Photo courtesy: Fort Steilacoom.

For the American side of the historical holidays, Christmas at Fort Steilacoom on December 10 will offer glimpses of Old West pioneer living at what was the first American fort in the region. Fort Steilacoom, located on the grounds of Western State Hospital, was a military post deep in the heart of nowhere, but a nowhere on the rise. Settlers were starting to pour into the region, and military posts not only offered hard currency but also the rule of law. Every role it played will come to life as reenactors gamble their wages away, dance with ladies from the surrounding farms, and opine about their former lives “back East” under the glow of candlelight and the rising rumblings of secession. The volunteer reenactors will create scenes, accents and discussion points straight from journals and newspapers of the day.

“That’s where we get the inspirations for what we do,” Bateman said.

He and other soldiers, for example, grind coffee beans in their metal cups by crushing the beans with their bayonets during these living history events after reading accounts of soldiers doing exactly that.

Puget Sound Revels

For a historical holiday event with more singing and dancing, and less marching and men with brass buttons, Puget Sound Revels offers “The Christmas Revels,” a Welsh celebration of the winter solstice with traditional dance, processionals, carols and tales. Anchoring the event will be Deuair, a Wales-based duo that will perform traditional tunes on traditional instruments. This event runs from December 17 to December 21 at the Rialto Theater.

Puget Sound Revels
Puget Sound Revels will sing and dance in the Welsh tradition. Photo courtesy: Puget Sound Revels.

This year’s revels include a village setting that comes straight from the poetic lines of Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” and then to a misty moor filled with sorcerers and shape-shifters telling the legends of old.

Tickets and details about the Fort Nisqually event can be found at FortNisqually.org. Tickets and details about the Fort Steilacoom event can be found at historicfortsteilacoom.org. Tickets and details about the Puget Sound Revels event can be found at pugetsoundrevels.org.