Arrive an hour early — and spend that hour inside the mansion. That is the short answer, and it is the single biggest difference between a Minneapolis holiday lights trolley ride that boards at the Pillsbury Club and every other Christmas lights trolley in the Twin Cities. Most of them hand you a wristband in a sports bar or a parking ramp. Ours begins under a carved limestone arch on East 22nd Street, in a house built in 1912.

Why the hour before matters

The competing BYOB holiday lights trolley in this market checks guests in at a downtown bar, where the first hour is paperwork, a gift bag and a cooler you have to haul across a sidewalk. That is a real hour of your evening, and it is spent standing up.

At the Pillsbury Club, that same hour is the warm-up act. You walk into an English Gothic Revival mansion designed by Hewitt and Brown, a designated Minneapolis landmark built for Charles S. Pillsbury, and you sit down. There is a fire’s worth of warm light, there is a bar, and there is nowhere you have to be until the trolley pulls up to the door.

Eat something first

An hour on a trolley goes better on a full stomach. The club dining room is open before rides, and appetizers travel well between courses of holiday lights. If you are deciding what to order, we walked through the whole list in what you can eat and drink at the Pillsbury Club.

Shop the holiday market

Each holiday season the mansion’s main floor fills with a market of Minnesota artists and makers — more than fifty of them — selling handmade gifts, ornaments and pantry things. It is genuinely a better place to finish your Christmas shopping than a mall, and it is open before and after your ride. More on it here: shopping for Minnesota-made gifts inside a historic Minneapolis mansion.

Get your drink before you board

This is the part people are surprised by. On the 21+ ride, the drink in your hand comes with you. You order at the club bar, you walk out the front door, and you carry it straight onto a heated vintage trolley. No cooler to drag, no curbside shuffle, no plastic cup handed to you in a parking lot.

Naughty or Nice — which ride are you on?

Santa’s Nice Ride is the all-ages one: about an hour, Christmas music, festive narration, and a running vote on the best decorated house you pass. Grandparents, kids and out-of-town visitors all do fine on it. It starts from $30.

The Naughty Holiday Party Ride is strictly 21+ and runs about two hours — part lights tour, part rolling holiday party, with cocktails in the mansion first. It starts from $75 and is the one to book for a girls’ night, a date night, or an office party you actually want to attend.

Mpls.St.Paul Magazine included the ride in its guide to holiday lights in Minnesota, alongside the Arboretum’s Winter Lights and the GLOW festival at CHS Field — an unranked roundup, but good company.

What happens once you are rolling

Routes shift through the season, because the displays do. Depending on the night you may roll past residential blocks that go all-out, decorated historic neighborhoods, downtown Minneapolis light displays and the seasonal installations that end up on everyone’s camera roll. Guides are local and narrate the whole way. If you would rather plan a walking or driving night of your own around it, Meet Minneapolis keeps a running list of the city’s best holiday lights, and we have our own take on the best holiday lights near downtown Minneapolis.

Practical things worth knowing

• The trolley is heated and enclosed. Dress for the walk from your car, not for two hours outdoors.
• Parking is free just across the street from the club at 100 East 22nd Street.
• You do not need to be a member to come — see our note on that and plan your visit.
• December rides sell out. The Naughty ride goes first.

Make a night of it, or a weekend

If the ride is the centerpiece of a bigger evening, you have two good places to land afterward. 300 Clifton, the 1887 Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion in Loring Park, is a bed and breakfast a few minutes away — the only mansion in Minneapolis you can tour and then sleep in. For a longer winter stay, Oakland’s on 9th has furnished month-to-month studios downtown. Either way, nobody is driving home cold.

Book the ride

Pick your night, pick Naughty or Nice, and give yourself the extra hour. Book the Holiday Light Ride, or call the club at 100 East 22nd Street if you are putting together a group. The mansion is the part people remember — start early enough to enjoy it.

Keep reading: How Do You Get to the Pillsbury Club, and Where Do You Park?