Baltimore’s holiday season does not begin with a shopping ad — it begins with a monument catching fire with light. The annual Monument Lighting in Mount Vernon, a beloved tradition since 1971, gathers thousands on Washington Place as the city’s Washington Monument — the nation’s first, completed in 1829 — is illuminated with thousands of lights, capped by fireworks over Mount Vernon.
The early-December evening is Baltimore at its most neighborly: choirs and performers on stage, food vendors along the squares, families claiming curb space with blankets and cocoa, and that collective gasp when the column blooms into brightness and the first rockets rise behind it.
It is the official starting gun of the season — and from there, Miracle on 34th Street and the Christmas Village take the baton.
The Monument Lighting fills Washington Place in Mount Vernon each December. Details at promotionandarts.org.
