12 Wildly Popular Holiday Garden Light Displays Across the U.S.

Every December the 140-acre garden hosts “Las Noches de las Luminarias,” a nod to Southwestern and Hispanic cultures during the winter holiday, and a tradition since 1978 when volunteers lit 700 tiny lights and placed them in paper bags along the garden paths for one night only. Now it’s a month-long event. This year, there’s another reason to visit the garden: “Chihuly in the Desert,” an exhibit of glass artist Dale Chihuly’s large-scale works debuting in early December, features nighttime slots (between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.) through June of 2022.

Tucked into Indy’s 52-acre museum complex, “Winterlights” is quite a spectacle, with 1.5 million lights aglow in the Gardens at Newfields, in addition to a light-and-shadow sculpture (in the Four Seasons Garden) and projection-mapped rock show. Craft-beer fans, take note: Sun King Brewery’s Electric Reindeer, a beer exclusive to Newfields, will be on tap. Families—and “kids” of all ages—will love the make-your-own s’mores station.

Walk among oversized, neon-lit flowers; illuminated tunnels; and water features all a-glow at “Garden Lights, Holiday Nights.” New this year at the 30-acre Midtown garden are a Glowing Grove along the Flower Walk and, if you missed the summer 2021 show “SUPERNatural: Glass Art by Jason Gamrath,” or want to see it again, the works are on exhibit during this show, too. Last year, Atlantans—specifically, readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution—voted this show the city’s best holiday event.

Founded in 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden is the nation’s oldest botanical garden in continuous operation and a National Historic Landmark. For “Garden Glow,” expect to see roughly a million lights. If you still need the perfect backdrop for your holiday card, there are several spots throughout the garden where visitors are encouraged to take snaps, including standing inside larger-than-life frames. For a warm, gooey treat, s’mores fire pits are set up on the “Garden Glow” path.

This 53-acre garden goes an extra mile with the design by creating, out of 500,000 lights, neon sculptures shaped like birds, animals, waterfalls, and plants as a focal point of the “Garden d’Lights” show. One of the country’s newer-established gardens, it was established in 1992, with several expansions that followed. While it’s always free to explore the gardens during daylight, this special event remains equally affordable ($5 per person).

Denver’s Botanic Gardens hosts such a stunning light show that many couples decide to get engaged here, inspiring the gardens to launch a Merry & Bright engagement package. “Blossoms of Light” has been lighting up the 23-acre York Street park for three decades. (Note that this is different than the gardens Chatfield Farms in Littleton.) It’s also a popular birthday-party location. New this year is the O’Fallon Perennial Walk, a 17-foot-tall tunnel of lights that’s 200 feet in length.

Imagine walking through a glowing one-mile forest, only 12 miles north of bustling downtown Los Angeles. The gardens’ “Enchanted: Forest of Light” show is accented by a local artist’s stained-glass houses that were built in the Rose Garden, a new addition this year. Like previous years, Flower Power on the Promenade and HYBYCOZO installations on the Main Lawn are true highlights, as are fun lighting effects in the Ancient Forest.

At “Night Lights in the Garden,” the subtropical setting’s 170 acres tilt in a new direction once a thousand lights are flicked on for this annual event, now on its 12th year. This year, an added activities area at the gardens, on the Performance Lawn, celebrates camping and outdoor life, with an illuminated campground tent. Bonus: as the exhibit is sponsored by Johnsonville, you can grill your own brats (real and faux).

Virginia’s capital city gets to shine during Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s “Dominion Energy GardenFest of Lights” show, when millions of lights are spun into fun installations. Each year embodies a theme: this year it’s Naturally Connected. This includes the new Orlosky Studio’s “Poems of Positivity” light installation, where crowd-sourced words—in answer to the question of “What is something that makes you feel positive?”—were cut into black acrylic and are illuminated on three towers.