November 24, 2025 - A holiday tradition will return to Beckley, West Virginia with discounted skating, decorated mine tours and family activities spread across November and early December.

Coal Town Christmas will return to the Exhibition Coal Mine in Beckley with decorated underground tours, a synthetic ice rink, youth museum exhibits, ornament workshops and arts-and-crafts vendors on select evenings from Black Friday through the first weekend in December. Event nights will operate at discounted rates compared to summer tour pricing with parking, restrooms and indoor warm-up areas available on site to manage crowds expected from within an estimated 50-mile radius.

“We’ve been doing the Coal Town Christmas season for over 20 years,” Director of Parks & Rec Leslie Gray Baker said. “It’s just such a traditional thing. We have people that are bringing their grandchildren who say, ‘we used to do this when we were children and we want our families to experience the same thing.’ It’s just kind of a Beckley tradition.”

According to Baker, the Coal Town Christmas seasonal event lines up perfectly with the other slate of holiday events throughout Beckley.

“They do this then they go see Jerry Rose’s ‘Nutcracker,’ and then they go to the parade,” Leslie said. “It’s kind of like, that’s what ushers in the Christmas season before all the hustle and bustle when you’re really getting down to it with your own family.”

Baker said Coal Town Christmas now builds on a full evening of activities at the mine complex. “We have an abbreviated tour underground that’s decorated with hundreds of thousands of lights down here,” Baker said. Vendors will line the grounds with arts and crafts while staff sell house-made fudge.

“Coal Town Christmas is what we do for our locals,” Baker said. “We keep it affordable for anybody, and that’s the majority of who we see, and that’s how we really give back to the community for that. That’s what the skating rinks for.”

“It’s Teflon. It’s not really ice but if you’re on it then it’s extremely slick,” Baker said. “We polish it. We have a little Zamboni. We treat it exactly the same way that ice is except for we don’t have to worry about days like today when it’s 50 degrees.”

Baker went on to explain how affordable the rink is with prices starting at just $5 for an hour on the synthetic ice.

For businesses on the property, the season also feels different.

“Oh, the summer, that’s our season,” shop operator Wendy Howerton said. “We close November the first.”

The closure shifts attention from peak tourist traffic toward local residents who bundle up for skating sessions and strolls through the underground tour. Howerton said that rhythm fits the mine’s role as a neighborhood gathering place.

“We do several things throughout the year,” Howerton said. “We do the Honey Festival and we do the West Virginia Day celebration, both of which is for our locals and so we like to have those days that are just for the people that live here.”

The advance look at the Coal Town Christmas reveals a long-running holiday tradition that now pairs synthetic ice and underground lights with coal mining history, local festivals and small-business rhythm, positioning the mine campus as a winter hub for Beckley residents who return year after year to start the season on familiar ground.