Jump to this season's holiday lights events ↓
Speedway In Lights
The region's big one. Since 1997 Bristol Motor Speedway has turned itself into a drive-through light show for Speedway Children's Charities: more than three million lights and some 250 displays along a five-mile route that runs through the Dragway, around the infield and out onto the track itself. Mid-November into the first days of January, nightly. The Christmas Village in the middle has Santa, food and a place to stretch your legs. On December weekends the line of cars backs up onto the highway; a weeknight early in the run moves fast, and the Speedway sells a Fast Pass for the nights that don't.
The Santa Train and Kingsport
Since 1943 the CSX Santa Train has run on the Saturday before Thanksgiving: 110 miles down the old Clinchfield line from Shelbiana, Kentucky, through 14 stops in the coalfields, handing out fifteen tons of gifts along the way, and rolling into downtown Kingsport in the afternoon for the Santa's Depot celebration. Kingsport's season starts when it pulls in. Broad Street's lights and the downtown parade follow in the weeks after, and Christmas Connection, the artisan market, is the same month.
Johnson City: Candy Land Christmas
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Johnson City lights the big tree downtown at 6:30 and, with it, more than 180 smaller trees decorated by local businesses, schools and clubs in King Commons, Founders Park and along Main Street. They stay lit into early January. Walk it any evening; it's free and it's the best-looking downtown in the region for six weeks.
Elizabethton, Jonesborough, Bristol
Elizabethton strings 20,000 lights through the 1882 Covered Bridge and Covered Bridge Park, hangs a wreath on the bridge, and lights a downtown that has done Christmas lights since 1934; the parade comes in early December. Jonesborough dresses Tennessee's oldest town for the season, and the Heritage Alliance's Victorian Christmas Social — the Progressive Dinner for 40-odd years before the rename — walks you through the historic houses by candlelight. Rocky Mount in Piney Flats stages Candlelight Christmas as Christmas Eve 1791 at the Cobb house, evenings in December; reserve. Bristol lights State Street on both sides of the line and parades downtown.
Realities
- Speedway In Lights on a December Saturday means a long line on the highway before you see a bulb. Weeknights, or the Fast Pass.
- The Santa Train draws a crowd to the Kingsport depot; get there well before the train.
- Rocky Mount and Jonesborough's candlelight evenings are small and sell out; book them, don't show up.
- Dates shift a few days every year and the weather owns the outdoor nights. The prose here is the pattern; the cards below are this year.
On the calendar this season
This year's holiday lights, from our calendar:
What returns every year
- Speedway In Lights — Bristol · mid-November – early January
Five miles of drive-through displays through the Dragway and around the Speedway — three million-plus lights, since 1997, for Speedway Children's Charities. - CSX Santa Train — Kingsport · Saturday before Thanksgiving
Since 1943; 110 miles from Kentucky to downtown Kingsport with fifteen tons of gifts aboard. - Candy Land Christmas — Johnson City · late November – early January
Grand tree lighting the Saturday after Thanksgiving, then 180-plus decorated trees downtown all season. - Christmas Connection — Kingsport · November
The holiday artisan market. - Covered Bridge lights — Elizabethton · late November – early January
20,000 lights through the 1882 bridge and the park; the downtown lights date to 1934. - Candlelight Christmas at Rocky Mount — Piney Flats · December evenings
Christmas Eve 1791 at the Cobb house, by candle. Reserve. - Downtown tree lightings — all four towns · late November – early December
Each downtown lights its own — Jonesborough's, on Tennessee's oldest Main Street, feels like a movie set.