5 Things to Do in the D this Weekend January 5-7, 2024

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Kickoff list from the Detroit Free Press. Add your suggestions below.

Fire & Ice Festival

The first of four themed Winter at Valade weekends will start with a festival that will feature medieval fun with a winter twist, presented by Friends of Robert C. Valade Park.
The festival will include live performances, an ice carving competition, food, hands-on activities such as archery, inflatable axe throwing and more. Characters such as Elsa from Frozen and Renaissance Fair performers will wander the park along with a majestic throne carved from blocks of solid ice available for photo opportunities.

A signature moment will be the lighting of the seven-foot-tall fire and ice tower, which will transform into a giant bonfire at 6 p.m. Saturday.

To help guests stay warm, free gloves and hand-warmer pouches will be available during select hours.

4-9 p.m. Friday; noon-9 p.m. Saturday and noon-7 p.m. Sunday at Robert C. Valade Park, 2670 Atwater along the East Riverfront in downtown Detroit.

Winter Park at Bowers School Farm

Even if there is no snow, a sledding hill at this winter park attraction offers a new "mSnow" surface made with recycled construction barrels for tubing. There'll be farm animals, a bonfire and kids can play at a new winter playscape that has a straw tower, big tractor tires and more.
The Bowers store and kitchen will be open.

4-10 p.m. Fridays; noon-10 p.m. Saturdays; noon-9 p.m. Sundays; and 5-9 p.m. Thursdays through Feb. 25 at Winter Park, 1219 Square Lake in Bloomfield Hills. Tubing tickets are $17 per person and should be purchased in advance online. Free admission to farm.

The Rink at Campus Martius

Experience outdoor ice skating in downtown Detroit at the Rink at Campus Martius presented by Visit Detroit through March 3.

11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays;10 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturdays and noon-8 p.m. Sundays. Tickets and skate rentals are offered on-site on a first come, first served basis. Adults are $12; children are $9; skate rental is $6.

Cirque du Soleil Crystal

This one-of-a-kind production will bring the circus arts to the ice, blending skating with acrobatics and aerial feats as it returns to Detroit for six performances.

The show will feature traditional circus acts, including trapeze, hand-to-hand, aerial straps, hand-to trapeze, juggling and hand balancing, all adapted to be performed on ice.
7:30 p.m. Thursday; 7:30 p.m. Friday; 3 p.m. & 7 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. & 5 p.m. Sunday at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. Tickets start at $55.

Northern Lights

Beacon Park has been transformed into a winter wonderland and pop-up seasonal gathering space. The park will be lit up with 125,000 holiday lights.

Guests can experience “Northern Lights” with larger-than-life light features, including a 15-foot infinity snow globe, a gigantic walkthrough snowflake and skating and sledding polar bears.

New this year is an indoor heated space that will feature live entertainment, art installations, themed décor, visual displays, photo backdrops, along with a winter cocktail spritz bar by Lumen Detroit.

Open through Jan. 16 at Beacon Park in downtown Detroit. Free.

Brendel Hightower is an assistant editor at the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at bhightower@freepress.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.

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Many Orthodox Christian communities in Metro Detroit will be celebrating Christmas this Sunday [[Russians, Georgians, Macedonians, Serbs, some Ukrainians, Egyptian Copts, Belarusians, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and some others).