Ohio-bound for the holidays? Follow the state’s Holiday Lights Trail, which this year includes the historic Cambridge/Guernsey County Courthouse. Built in 1880, the building bursts into a sparkling blaze each night with more than 80,000 pulsating lights synchronized to holiday music.

Before or after you’ve admired all that seasonal twinkle and glow, stop by the Dickens Victorian Village in Historic Downtown Cambridge. The exhibition includes life-sized, handcrafted mannequins dressed in vintage clothing, engaged in 96 different scenes pulled from the Victorian era, all displayed along Wheeling Avenue. Driving maps leading to all 30 sites on the trail can be downloaded from the online Ohio Holiday Lights Trail website.

If you’d rather ride the rails than drive, you can have your own Polar Express experience at multiple Ohio locations. In Findlay, the Northwest Ohio Railroad Preservation’s one-quarter scale North Pole Express leaves the station every 15 minutes on weekends and select nights. At the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum in Dennison, storytellers share the tale of The Polar Express while kids and families are treated to cookies, hot cocoa and songs — with Santa boarding the train to distribute sleigh bells to kids.

© Cambridge/Guernsey County Visitors & Convention Bureau

In Nelsonville, the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway offers two-hour journeys on the Santa Trains, while the Cuyahoga Valley National Scenic Railway’s Polar Express expedition invites kids and parents to climb into pajamas and board the train for hot chocolate and treats en route to North Pole Village, where caroling elves greet passengers.

Other holiday-themed train journeys include the LM&M Railroad & the North Pole Express in Lebanon, where passengers get a souvenir hot chocolate mug; an on-board reenactment of Chris Van Allsburg’s The Polar Express at the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum in Dennison; and an opportunity for kids to compose their letters to Santa and mail them from Worthington at the Ohio Railway Museum’s 1920s Railway Post Office Car. Kids can also create their own holiday crafts, take a photo with Mrs. Claus and enjoy a ride in the train’s restored 1925 Interurban car.