Top left: (Courtesy of VanDusen Bonatical Garden); Top Right: (Photo by PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP via Getty Images); Bottom left: (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images); Bottom Right: Photo by Michael Heiman/Getty Images
With the holiday season upon us, people around the world are using lights as a way to broadcast their season’s greetings. From modest Christmas trees to million-dollar displays, holiday light shows of all shapes and sizes are a feast for the eyes and heartwarming for the soul.
Some of the world’s most impressive holiday light shows take place on North American soil.
VanDusen Festival of Lights. Courtesy of VanDusen Bonatical Garden
VanDusen Festival of Lights. Courtesy of VanDusen Bonatical Garden
The famous Christmas Eve Farolito Walk at Canyon Road has become one of Santa Fe, New Mexico’s, most treasured holiday traditions. It also retains a traditional spirit; Canyon Road is lined not with electric lights but with small, sand-filled, paper bags illuminated with votive candles, since “farolito” is Spanish for paper lantern, and the streets come alive with the soft sound of carol singers on Dec. 24.
Farolito Walk at Canyon Road, Santa Fe. Courtesy of TOURISM Santa Fe
Meanwhile, Silver Dollar City theme park in Branson, Missouri, hosts an altogether more modern Christmas extravaganza through December. The park’s 2022 production, “Coming Home For Christmas,” is a Broadway-style show with a cast of 14 singers and dancers and a four-piece band presenting holiday music and stories, as well as family traditions such as cooking Christmas dinner.
Some other highlights include 6.5 million lights that will cover the city, an evening parade that consists of nine musical floats with 200,000 LED lights, and an eight-story animated Christmas tree featuring 350,000 dancing high-resolution lights.
Visitors to the park’s Midtown can experience light tunnels, “wreath portals,” soaring angels, and other special effects.
Silver Dollar City. Courtesy of Silver Dollar City
Silver Dollar City. Courtesy of Silver Dollar City
Silver Dollar City. Courtesy of Silver Dollar City
In Vancouver, Canada, 15 acres of VanDusen Botanical Garden is decorated with more than a million twinkling Christmas lights during VanDusen’s annual Festival of Lights.
A timeless and enchanting experience, visitors are invited to take part by lighting a candle, riding a carousel, and watching the “dancing light” display.
City of Vancouver. Courtesy of VanDusen Bonatical Garden
New York has two incredible Christmas light events: the 82-foot illuminated Christmas tree outside New York City’s Rockefeller Center, a beloved holiday tradition since 1933, and Dyker Heights, a Brooklyn neighborhood that has earned a reputation for going big on its bold, bright, larger-than-life light displays every single year.
A view of the annual tree lighting ceremony and Christmas celebration at the Rockefeller Center in New York City. Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images
Decorated houses are seen on Christmas Eve in the Dyker Heights neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Photo by Michael Heiman/Getty Images
Heading overseas, there are myriad light shows not to be missed. Some of the most longevous and dazzling include the LED light display spanning the length of London’s Oxford Street, the luxury shopping epicenter of England’s capital city, and Luci d'Artista in Salerno, Italy, a holiday festival of light sculptures.
Christmas lights on Oxford Street in London, England. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The Christmas lights during the "Luci d'Artista" (Artist's Lights of Salerno) in Salerno, southern Italy. MARIO LAPORTA/AFP via Getty Images
At Cathedral Square in Vilnius, Lithuania, the town’s Christmas tree designs have always been a sight to behold, and have had a great influence on the world’s Christmas decorating traditions.
A picture taken on Nov. 30, 2019, shows an illuminated Christmas tree displayed outside the Cathedral during a lighting ceremony in Vilnius. Photo by PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP via Getty Images
