Find out where to see Christmas lights in L.A. this year

Descanso Gardens’ light-up experience ditches the kitsch aesthetic typical at many venues in favor of a whimsical, wondrous, curiosity-driven display that’s among L.A.’s most stunning and, more importantly, most fun. The interactive, nighttime program sets up illuminated installations around the botanical garden grounds, from luminescent forests to free-standing hands-on art pieces.

While L.A. might lure in visitors with breezy palm trees, the region is no slouch when it comes to conifers. Case in point: This grand, mile-long driveway of cedars in Altadena becomes blanketed in lights each holiday as it transforms into Christmas Tree Lane. Take a majestic cruise down the hill after it lights up (the lighting ceremony takes place December 10). And we do suggest going down: Traffic can get pretty gridlocked during peak holiday season, but it moves a bit better if you start at the top and head south (or just visit later in the evening, before the lights flick off at 10pm).

Santa Rosa Ave, between Woodbury Rd and Altadena Dr (Altadena)

Feel as though you’ve escaped to a small-town fishing village during the Marina Del Rey Boat Parade—well, you know, minus the massive crowds. Bring a blanket and gather around Fisherman’s Village or Burton Chace Park to watch as 70 boats glide through the marina with holiday lights and decorations in competition. Categories include Best Theme, Best Animation, Best Band, Best Lights and more. The festivities on December 11 begin at 5:55pm with fireworks, and the boat parade starts at 6pm, rain or shine.

The on-foot spiritual successor to the old nearby DWP Holiday Lights, most of the displays here are inspired by the zoo’s wild residents (elephants, giraffes, koalas and condors, among them). That’s especially the case with the new “Animals Aglow” theme, which doubles down on oversized, animated animal lanterns—to delightfully charming effect.

Sometimes you simply want to see as many lights as possible, and Torrance’s Seaside neighborhood (sometimes referred to as Sleepy Hollow) surely delivers. Follow the stream of brake lights overflowing from Robert Road for a trek through this visual overload. Starting in early December, seemingly every tree, house and lawn becomes blanketed in an electric bill-dizzying degree. The displays typically run every night from 6 to 10pm, up until New Year’s. There’s typically no parking on the street during those times, so you’ll have to walk the few blocks (park on PCH, Calle Mayor or Prospect Avenue).

Robert Rd, off of the Pacific Coast Hwy, and surrounding streets (Torrance)

Riverside’s stunningly beautiful Mission Inn is bathed in 4.5 million twinkly lights during the annual Festival of Lights. The free six-week-long holiday tradition begins the day after Thanksgiving and typically features more than 400 animated figures.

Free of the boardwalk’s grunge and Abbot Kinney’s pretense, the Venice Canals are an idyllic slice of L.A. living made all the more charming by the Christmas lights that line its bridges each year. Leave your car a few blocks away to avoid the narrow, one-way Dell Avenue, and take a stroll through the shimmering neighborhood. The long-running and gleefully irreverent boat parade typical floats along the first or second Sunday of December.

Dell Ave (Venice)

Tanaka Farms is opening up its Irvine fields for this after-dark wagon ride and walk-through. Hikari—which means “light” or “shine” in Japanese—has set up a long trail of lanterns, plus some festive theming that’s overtaken the farm’s scarecrows, tractors and trees. You’ll be able to explore the lantern field by both tractor and foot, and afterwards you can peruse a petting zoo, games, crafts and photo ops. You’ll need to purchase a parking pass, as well as tickets for each person; the prices fluctuate depending on the time, so opt for 7:30pm or later for the lowest cost.

Stroll across the grounds of King Gillette Ranch as the Santa Monica Mountains hideaway is illuminated during Holiday Road, which returns with a nearly mile-long walking trail. The event, which comes from the same team as Nights of the Jack, includes festive decor like a treetop canopy of icicle lights, a small Christmas village, freestanding oversized decorations and archways of lights. Look out for food trucks and a holiday bar while you’re there.

Even before the Halloween pumpkins disappear from Main Street, you’ll be able to spot signs of the holidays at Disneyland. The beloved theme park turns into the merriest place on earth for a full two months (Nov 11–Jan 8), with Christmas makeovers of popular rides and holiday-themed nighttime shows. As far as Christmas lights go, you’ll spot festive decor all over the parks, from the auto-themed Americana decorations in Cars Land to icicle lights draped atop Sleeping Beauty Castle. But the real standout, in our opinion, is the joyous facade of “It’s a Small World.”

Just a heads up: Reservations are required to visit Disneyland, and you can expect them to go particularly quick during the holidays.

We’ll admit it: Los Angeles has no true holiday counterpart to the festive windows of New York’s 5th Avenue. That said, our own tony shopping district, Beverly Hills, knows how to add a bit of opulence to the holidays. This year’s decorations on Rodeo Drive light up starting November 17. Elsewhere in the area, you can usually expect to see lights swirl around the palm trees, up the steps of Via Rodeo, over the span of Wilshire Boulevard and onto the extravagent Beverly Wilshire. Beverly Drive, too, typically gets covered in white lights, along with a willow tree decked out in gold decor at Beverly Cañon Gardens. 

Rodeo Dr, between Santa Monica Blvd and Wilshire Blvd (Beverly Hills)

Uplit trees and over a dozen illuminated installations dot the roughly mile-long pathway at the second edition of Lightscape at the L.A. County Arboretum. Whether or not the cost admission is worth it will largely come down to just how badly you want to pose for photos inside of the cathedral-like light tunnel. There are a few other pieces that’ll have you pausing for a bit, too (including a carpet of pulsating lights on the main lawn), but the bits in between can sometimes seem sparse in person.

Stroll through a garden illuminated by celestial-inspired lights during this year-end event at South Coast Botanic Garden. Astra Lumina will set up about an hour-long nighttime trail through the Palos Verdes garden, with eight starry installations along the way. The experience comes from Canadian entertainment company Moment Factory and replaces GLOW, which ran at South Coast the past two years.

We all like showing off to our neighbors, but the homeowners behind Candy Cane Lane take it to the extreme. There are actually two neighborhoods in L.A. that go by that name: One in El Segundo, on East Acacia Avenue, the second in Woodland Hills. Here, we’re talking about that Valley neighborhood, eight blocks centered around Lubao Avenue and Oxnard Street that have been blanketed in lights for more than six decades.

Lubao Ave and Oxnard St (Woodland Hills)

Ah, the joys of Christmas in a Mediterranean climate, where boat owners can deck out their ships in holiday lights and set sail without the impediment of icy weather. For the 114th year, the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade is doing just that as over 100 decorated yachts and ships parade around a 14-mile circuit in the Newport Harbor. You can see the parade for free during each of the five nights from any bay-facing point along the harbor, but there are also reserved seats, dining packages and cruises available for purchase.

This decades-old tradition of coordinated holiday displays among homeowners smakes the sloping grid of ranch-style homes in Upper Hastings Ranch a scenic year-end destination. Each block of the Pasadena neighborhood decorates according to a different theme; one street might be lined with light-up candy canes while another is flanked by an army of inflatable Santas. Look out for a lighting on December 10; you can cruise around the twinkling foothill community nightly from 6 to 10pm until the new year.

North of Sierra Madre Blvd and east of Michilinda Ave (Pasadena)

After a stint as a drive-through lights show dubbed Night of Lights OC, this Christmas-themed event is back under its original name. The Costa Mesa event includes a North Pole walkthrough, illuminated mini-golf, bounce houses, a holiday market and tons of lights, plus skating, tubing and bumper cars, all of the ice variety.