The 8 Places Where Christmas Lights Truly Make People’s Faces Light Up

Written by John Egan

When it comes to Christmas lights, the Oklahoma City, OK, metro area is a shining star.

The OKC metro area tops LawnStarter’s new ranking, based on Google Trends data, of the 8 Places Where Christmas Lights Truly Make People’s Faces Light Up.

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“Many metro area families build their holiday traditions around trips to see Christmas lights in and around Oklahoma City, which come to life with hundreds of brilliant displays November through January each year,” according to travel website TripSavvy.

If you consider the array of Christmas lighting displays throughout the OKC area, it’s no wonder that OKC lights up our list at No. 1. Here are a few examples of Christmas lights in the Oklahoma City area that certainly deserve Santa’s seal of approval.

Holiday in the Park at Six Flags Frontier City

Holiday in the Park, stretching from late November to early January, casts a festive glow at the Oklahoma City theme park thanks to more than 1 million twinkling lights.

“Our breathtaking winter wonderland features a variety of delightful and interactive activities to help capture the holiday spirit,” Frontier City says.

Christmas in the Park

From late November to late December, three of the parks in the suburb of Yukon — Yukon City Park, Freedom Trail Park and Chisholm Trail Park — host a drive-through lighting displays across 100 acres, according to TripSavvy.

“Motorists drive along nearly three miles of illuminated fun in three interconnected city parks to see 4 million twinkling lights and over 425 one-of-a-kind lighted displays,” the City of Yukon says.

Holiday Lights Spectacular

Also called Illumination Celebration, the Holiday Lights Spectacular in Midwest City features over 100 animated lighting displays, over 1 million lights and a 118-foot-tall Christmas tree illuminated by more than 9,000 LED bulbs.

The Holiday Lights Spectacular began in 1995 with only 44 displays and has since evolved into the largest animated lighting event in a five-state region.

Chickasha Festival of Light

Founded in 1992, the Chickasha Festival of Light — which lasts from mid-November to late December — draws visitors from across the U.S. Highlights of the festival include camel, carriage and carousel rides as well as, of course, an animated, musically choreographed light show. The festival, which runs from late November to late December, dazzles visitors with more than 3.5 million twinkling lights.

Ranking Methodology

For our ranking, we reviewed Google search activity from November 2013 to November 2018 for the term “Christmas lights.” Earning a Google Trends score of 90, Oklahoma City showed up at the very top of the Christmas tree, so to speak, as the U.S. metro area with the most “Christmas lights” search activity on Google. Data was available for 209 metro areas; we weeded out metro areas with fewer than 1 million residents.

Google Trends analyzes a percentage of all searches for a term such as “Christmas lights” within the same time and location parameters, and then assigns a search score (1 through 100) to a geographic region. For 2013 to 2018, Oklahoma City notched the highest score on the Google Trends scale — 90 — for the term “Christmas lights” among major metro areas. On the Google scale, a score of 100 signifies the maximum search interest for a particular period and place.

Note: Google search activity fluctuates frequently, meaning that a metro area’s score can change from one day to the next. Therefore, our ranking should be viewed as a snapshot in time.

Here’s our list of the 8 Places Where Christmas Lights Truly Make People’s Faces Light Up, based on Google Trends data.

#1 | Oklahoma City, OK

Google Trends score: 90

 

#2 (Tie) | DallasFort Worth, TX

Google Trends score: 88

 

#2 (Tie) | Nashville, TN

Google Trends score: 88

 

#3 (Tie) | Salt Lake City, UT

Google Trends score: 81

 

#3 (Tie) | St. Louis, MO

Google Trends score: 81

 

#4 | Houston, TX

Google Trends score: 79

 

#5 | Birmingham, AL

Google Trends score: 77

 

#6 | Cleveland, OH

Google Trends score: 76

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John Egan

John Egan is the former editor in chief of LawnStarter.com. Now, he is a freelance writer extraordinaire. He lives in Austin, Texas.