Saturday, December 8 – WOW! What a display of Christmas lights. Our daughter, Carrie, recommended to us the 25th Anniversary of the Lights in the Heights event here in Houston. The Heights is a downtown neighborhood on the northwest side of Houston. This is a neighborhood Christmas festival.
The snowmen are even bigger in Texas.
The lighting takes place on two streets each about 8 blocks long. We did see several other parallel streets also joining in on the festivities. Just about every house is decorated to the “nines.” It's "try to outdo the Jones" time. Thousands of lights, bands, Christmas carolers, Santa Claus, manger scenes, bell ringers, etc. You name it; it's on display.
If this works for the Guyre's, we are doing it next year.
One of our favorites.
See Santa back there.
Thousands pack the streets taking in the festivities. Hundreds of families with their kids, teens, young adults, and plenty of us older folks too!
Many of the homes have private parties with groups of friends enjoying the beautiful 80 degree weather on porches and patios. An outdoor event like this couldn't take place in many parts of the United States. I know it would pour down rain or snow and be bitterly cold if they tried to do something on this scale in Northeast Ohio.
These kids were so cute with this bear.
We arrived to the area just as things were beginning about 6 p.m. Crowds were already descending on the area, so we zipped in the first place parking spot we saw. It turned out to be a perfect parking spot, only about two blocks from the holiday lights.
Thousands of luminaries line Bayland Avenue and Highland Street from Houston Avenue to Studewood.
We walked up and down the streets enjoying the lights, listening to some great music and, of course, people watching. People never seem to disappoint us for a source of entertainment.
Early on, only a dozen or so musicians performed on porches. Today, over seventy entertainment groups volunteer their time and talent for this event.
Several houses had bell ringers. They were wonderful.
Several children's choirs entertained the crowds.
The celebrating officially ends at 9 p.m., and we are sure the partying goes on long after that deadline. By 8:00, we had completed the two street loop and were ready to head home.
You just never know how Santa is going to arrive.
True Houston Texans' fans live in this house.
It was a great night and more lights then we've ever seen. The Houston skyline was pretty impressive as we sped down I-45 on the way home. What a beautiful city.
What the season is all about.
This photo is for Judy of Travels with Emma.
The end.
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!
WOW! What terrific Christmas decorations. Portland has Peacock Lane that is all decorated up. All the houses have huge decorations and the traffic lines up for miles. We used to visit that area at Christmas every year.
ReplyDeleteFantastic. I really need to try and find some great lights here in Phoenix. Our little park does an amazingly good job of decorating. It's getting cold here at night - in the low 60's and I'm freezing. So I want to find lights that we can see from the car. LOL
ReplyDeleteThanks for saving me the drive. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure you found a few more lights than we have here at J-5. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteHow special for a community to organize this festive extravaganza of lights! It's heart-warming to see folks of all ages come together to celebrate the season! In this age of such divisiveness, it's wonderful to see so many people come together to joyously celebrate a shared tradition.
ReplyDeleteI used your "favorite" as desktop background. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great display of Christmas lights! And it looks like you had shirt-sleeve weather for the viewing--can't beat that.
ReplyDeleteThats a lot of lights. 80 sounds good its 18 as I write this 6am.
ReplyDeletewow alot of work..but gorgeous end results..thanks for sharing...
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite parts of the season, driving around and checking out the Christmas displays. Thanks for sharing Marsha.
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty good ending...holiday lights and all!
ReplyDeleteGreat photos! Judy is a great teacher re: the end!
ReplyDeleteThose are some pretty well decorated homes. Thanks for the great tour!
ReplyDeleteI loved scrolling down your blog and seeing all the "labels" off to the right of the blog showing all of the places that you had been! It sounds like a lot of fun. Me and my girlfriends actually went to West Palm Beach in Florida and looked at lights last night. I enjoyed your pictures, I love a good blog with lots of pictures. :) I actually work for a rv dealership down here in Florida and we sell fifth wheel campers, do you have pictures of the inside of your camper, I think it would be cool to see inside. :) It's always cool to see different floor layouts. Enjoy the RV lifestyle! :)
ReplyDeleteLights in the Heights is one of the best community displays I've seen. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the holiday cheer. They do something similar to this in Baltimore, but the one time we were going to go, it rained and then we forgot about it.
ReplyDelete