Where to Find the Christmas Trails of Lights in the Texas Hill Country

Allow this Texas Hill Country native to guide you through the Texas Hill Country Christmas Lights Trails.

The towns of the Texas Hill Country provide an impressive variety of lighted displays during the Christmas Season during the Texas Hill Country Regional Christmas Lighting Trail. The trails and other holiday events fill the month of December and some start before Thanksgiving. This list presents your trails of lights options from Bandera to Burnet with a side trip to Austin, Texas.

• The Cowboy Capital of the World, Bandera, has singing, a live nativity, and dancers with the Business Association providing a huge display of over 100 decorated Christmas trees and lighted holiday scenes. The festivities start in early December.

• Blanco‘s Bindseil Park transforms into a Christmas path of lights. Blanco holds its Annual Christmas Market Day on the courthouse grounds with a lighted Christmas Parade in the evening.

• Be transported to a Victorian Christmas in Boerne with Dickens on Main where the shops stay open late and the nighttime Christmas Parade winds through downtown. Boerne continues the Christmas celebrating with Oma’s Christmas Fair, Boerne’s Market Days, and Cowboy Christmas at Enchanted Springs Ranch.

• Dripping Springs holds its annual Christmas on Mercer Street with free music, classic car show, pony rides, photos with Santa, and delicious food and drink. The day culminates with the Lighting of the Tree as Christmas carolers serenade you.

• Ice skate at Fredericksburg‘s outdoor skating rink, catch a holiday show at the famous Rockbox Theater, enjoy the Christmas lights on the Christmas Journey Drive Through, and perhaps dress to the nines for the Luckenback Christmas Ball.

• Johnson City, boyhood home of President Lyndon B. Johnson, has one of the largest Christmas light displays in Texas. The town starts their Christmas trail of lights early – the Friday night prior to Thanksgiving – and leaves the lights on until January 1. The courthouse alone has 100,000 lights. Pedernales Electric Co-op decorates their headquarters with a million lights! With chuck wagons and the Living Story of Christmas, Johnson City is full of Christmas spirit.

• Kerrville‘s holiday lighted parade is one of the best in the state. The Courthouse lighting dazzles with 140,000 lights. The month of December is full of dancing, a symphony performance, a presentation of A Christmas Carol, and a Holiday Stroll complete with scavenger hunt.

• Marble Falls stuns with over two million lights on over 150 sculptures on the shoreline of Lake Marble Falls during the annual Marble Falls Walkway of Lights.

• Wimberley‘s EmilyAnn Theatre and Gardens transforms into an impressive Christmas Trail of Lights complete with music, bonfire, and roasted marshmallows, s’mores, and hot dogs. I live here and go to the EmilyAnn Christmas Trail of Lights at least twice during the season. The stores stay open late during the annual Winter’s Eve on the Square with live entertainment, food, and a raffle.

• Visit Burnet during the first two weekends in December to experience an authentic recreation of ancient Bethlehem. Stay to enjoy thousands of lights decorating the Burnet County Courthouse and the Annual Christmas on the Square.

While not officially part of Texas Hill Country Regional Christmas Lighting Trail, Austin Texas holds its annual million-light Trail of Lights in Zilker Park including the 155-foot holiday tree, under which people love to spin because it seems to blink as you look up. After the City of Austin could no longer afford the expense, the trail was dark in 2010 and 2011, but private funding gave new life to this Austin tradition in 2012.

The light display in Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood that begins at 37th and Guadalupe St. is famous for its eclectic “Keep Austin Weird” Christmas lawn decorations. If you can make it, you won’t be sorry. It’s pedestrian traffic only, so park and walk.

Note: I’m reviewing the options for the 2013 Christmas trails of light, but these events happen every Christmas season. If the links provided don’t work in future years, please use the list for your Internet search.