Johnson City: The Twinkliest Town In Texas
Known as the Twinkliest Town in Texas, Johnson City's annual Lights Spectacular draws four times its population every year since it started in 1989.
The holidays in Texas can be incredible. Thanks to the widespread Germanic influence in the state, Texas excels in the Christmas light department. Add in an oil state’s obsession with ostentatious energy use and weather that makes most outdoor events balmy rather than frigid, and you can see some of the best lights in the country here.
One place worth visiting is Johnson City, a tiny town of less than 2,000 souls situated 50 miles west of Austin in the heart of the Hill Country. Known as the Twinkliest Town in Texas, its annual Lights Spectacular draws four times its population every year since it started in 1989 with a few lights around the courthouse. Now, it’s a month-long celebration of illumination that runs through January 4.
“Lights Spectacular is unique because it’s completely free and accessible,” said Johnson City Lights Spectacular Board Chair, Rayette Bible, in an emailed interview. “It’s not a lights display you drive through in your car. You walk through the town and immerse yourself in the holiday spirit and cheer. Other events feel more like something you pay to see, rather than something you’re a part of. Johnson City continually strives to make the event feel welcoming and wonderful for guests.”
In a way, Johnson City during the holidays feels like something right out of a Hallmark Christmas romance. The city square, Memorial Park, and the PEC headquarters sparkle with over two million lights as they fill up with vendors, outdoor movies, and carriage and tractor rides. What it may lack in scope compared to the big cities, it more than makes up for in charm.
Houston’s Many Trichell, a personal trainer, wrestling referee, and artist, visited Johnson City in 2022. She immediately fell in love with how hard the town does Christmas.
“It's an immersive experience, which I feel like is an overused word that has lost a bit of meaning when it comes to entertainment,” she said in an email interview “It's not just a few trees lit up. The entire town feels like Christmas. Every small business and restaurant participates in some way. Aside from the lights, there's an entire block set up with a labyrinth of decorations, each of which is really more of a craft project made by different groups, schools, non-profits, businesses, etc. There are horse-drawn chariots and hayrides. Santa of course, all throughout the entirety of the small town.”
Michael Carpenter is another Houstonian who visited the Lights Spectacular in 2022 when he and his family were staying in a hotel near Johnson City. For them, it was doubly magical as they got to tour the town while everything was still setting up, basically giving them a chance to wander through the exhibit alone.
“My favorite part was my kids’ reaction to the number of lights and decorated trees.” he said in an email interview. “When walking through them, we felt completely surrounded by lights!”
Over the last 38 years, the Lights Spectacular has grown larger and more elaborate without losing its small-town charm. For the 2025 season, activities include a parade, a 5K Jingle Jaunt, science experiments hosted by Science Mill, a living Nativity and choir, and a lamplight tour of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s boyhood home.
Psychologically, the holidays are a time when Americans crave a sense of comfort and warmth. Media studies scholar John Mundy wrote in a 2008 essay that Christmas movies basically create an alternate reality, a shared seasonal religion where familial love always wins and hard hearts are open (or grow three sizes if you’re a Grinch fan). Portrayals of the holidays in popular media often leave people yearning for the simplicity and goodness of Christmas as seen through Hollywood.
What a town like Johnson City offers is basically the theme park equivalent of that need, a sort of Hallmark sacrament where hot chocolate or mulled wine replaces communion and you can perform your pilgrimage via charming hayride. Reality gets buried under a mountain of fake snow. Maybe it’s all as illusionary as Santa Claus, but to quote Terry Pratchett in Hogfather, “Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.”
It is darn near impossible to objectively quantify which town in Texas is the twinkliest, but Johnson City believes it is enough to make visitors believe it, too. That makes it a magical place to visit during the holiday.
“Visitors love that Lights Spectacular feels just like stepping into a holiday movie,” said Bible. “They love how welcoming it feels to enjoy the evening – or an entire weekend! – in our small town.”
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