Las Vegans get this question all the time: What’s Christmas like in Vegas? What are the holidays like?
For Brandon Flowers, lead singer for The Killers, it is different in some of the sites and sounds. But the feeling is the same. He talked with State of Nevada, which was exploring holiday traditions in Vegas.
“I have a special place in my heart for palm trees with Christmas lights and just the different experiences that we have in the desert,” he said.
His family created traditions. They’d have breakfast at Nevada Palace on Boulder Highway, then head to the snow on Mt. Charleston where they’d use inner tubes to glide down the slopes.
“Those are some of my fondest memories of my life, you know with my uncles, my dad and my mom, and my brothers and sisters,” Flowers said. “And so yeah, we did have our own versions of white Christmas sometimes.”
Las Vegas isn’t the kind of place people normally think of as a holiday destination. Just outside the city, we have brothels. In the city, we have casinos, gambling and the means to fulfill just about every hedonistic you can think of — for a price.
Ryan Pardey, a Las Vegas real estate agent, had worked for The Killers and is in four of the videos played a deranged Santa that the band created for their Christmas songs.
For years, he held a massive Christmas party that joined artists with poker players. And it started with his father, Rodney, who took the kids to the suite at Palace Station one Christmas day.
“And when I showed up to the top floor of Palace Station,” Pardey said. “There was there was very serious poker game going with
Full tables and some of my friends joined … and the very Vegas Christmas tradition of No Limit Texas Hold 'em on Christmas night began.
Vegas is also a vast melting pot of people from around the world. Many don’t celebrate this time of year because it’s not their tradition. Some bring different traditions. And some traditions change because of Vegas.
Caller and recent KNPR guest Kimberly De La Cruz said the transient nature of Las Vegas changed how she celebrated the holidays.
“Everyone from Vegas is from somewhere else originally. And so, those around my table this time of year is a lot different than it used to be. It's no longer my grandparents or my parents or my aunts and uncles. Instead, it’s my Vegas chosen family who have become like the aunts and uncles to my kids.”
And of course, many bars and casinos are open 24 hours. So at the end of the day, she said, they had to a tiki bar downtown.
“So that’s also very — I don’t think you do that in small towns. It’s very Vegas.”
Guest: Ryan Pardey, musician and realtor
