Long Beach, CA-If your favorite season includes festive lights, one sight you won't want to miss is the beautiful bay in Naples and Belmont Shore. It is filled with floating platforms that include strings of colorful lights designed to look like trees. As the sun goes down, these "trees" in Alamitos Bay begin to light up, taking on richer colors, textures and shapes with the darkening light.

The sight is so absorbing, you begin to think about how sad it must be to not be able to See California with your own two eyes. However, there's another way of seeing the holidays, as well, thanks to the likes of blind opera singer Andrea Bocelli, whose music introduces a whole new way of seeing. His singular-minded focus in training his voice to its peak performance, is equally significant to the holiday experience, bringing contextual meaning to "seeing". The intensity of the emotions in his voice reveals that he shares a vision through songs such as "Oh Holy Night". Holiday songs run through the minds of those standing and looking at the dancing lights and tree shapes in Naples as the sun goes down on a gentle L.A. night in December.

Be sure to stand on the beach at Alamitos Bay (on Bayshore Drive near 2nd Street) in Belmont Shore and let trees on the bay immerse you in the holiday spirit. It's an ideal time to take a gondola ride and celebrate the season.