Article Excerpt
Texas has many large Christmas light displays. Some of them let you enjoy the show from your car. Here are five of Texas’ most famous drive-thru Christmas lights.
How ‘bout some Texas-sized Christmas light displays?! The holiday season brings all kinds of creative and festive decorations around people’s homes, including a wide variety of Christmas lights. Many cities and towns in Texas also offer enormous and elaborate light displays. These usually begin in early December and continue until just before Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but some start earlier and go on longer.
Many of these displays allow you to marvel at the lights from the comfort and warmth of your car. In addition to the drive-thru portion, some venues have areas where you can get out of your car to enjoy food, holiday music, and various other activities. What are some of the best drive-thru light displays in Texas? Read on to learn about a few.
Photo by Jonathan Meyer from Pexels
Peppermint Parkway, Austin
Circuit of the Americas, located a few miles southeast of Austin, usually hosts Formula 1 races, concerts, and other events. For the holidays, it becomes Peppermint Parkway, a drive-thru light show with more than a mile of lights, displays, and other family-friendly attractions, including a 60-foot-tall Christmas tree. At the end of the trail, you can enjoy various activities, including food, amusement rides, and Christmas caroling.
Photo by Cole Ciarlello on Unsplash
Lights Alive!, San Antonio
You can find Lights Alive! on the west side of San Antonio. The lights are controlled by a computer and synchronized to music that you can play in your vehicle as you drive through the display. When you complete the mile-long route, you’ll arrive at the Park & Play Wonderland. Here you can get your picture taken with Santa, enjoy some holiday snacks, or create your own light show on an animated tree.
Radiance, North Texas
Radiance has four locations in and around the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex: Frisco, Weatherford, Ennis, and Decatur. Displays at each location include more than two million lights. The Frisco location also includes an attraction based on the Disney film Frozen, which features ice skating, two-story ice tubing hills, and a snowball toss with real snow. A ticket to Radiance also gets you into Frozen.
Photo by Tim Mossholder from Pexels
The Light Park, Spring and Katy
The Light Park actually has four locations, but we are highlighting the two in the greater Houston area. One is located north of town in Spring, and the other is west of town in Katy. The other locations are in San Antonio and Grand Prairie.
The Spring and San Antonio locations are particularly notable for having the world’s longest synchronized light tunnel, as well as a three-story-tall Santa Claus (four stories in San Antonio). They’re not saying how long the Spring or San Antonio tunnels are, but they advertise that the Katy and Grand Prairie locations each have a quarter-mile of light tunnels. In Texas terms, a quarter-mile is almost four-and-a-half football fields.
Photo by Irina Iriser from Pexels
Santa Land, Tyler
According to their Facebook page, Santa Land is Texas’ oldest drive-thru Christmas light display. It also remains open longer than most similar attractions, from mid-November to just after New Year’s Day. It is located in a 24-acre park along I-20. Hand-crafted animated displays include numerous original features, including:
Christmas Tree Lane
Elfland Carousel
Elfil Kinefil-jumping his motorcycle over an 18-wheeler
Merry Mermaid and Friends
Cowboy Country
Great Fountain Of Yule
Texas is a Great Place to Call Home
And it’s an even better place to hang your hat when you own your own house. Christmas decorators have a much nicer canvas with a front yard! Become a homeowner. Get started on your free pre-approval with the lender Texans trust.
