Will Work for Lights: How We Prepare for Luminary Walk

It is that time of year again! Volunteers and staff are preparing for our annual Winter Luminary Walk event. This means stringing hundreds of extension cords and thousands of Christmas lights throughout the Arboretum. It may seem ridiculously early, but we often start this process the day after Halloween. (Do you think a Monster Mash/White Christmas remix would ever be a radio hit?)

*Putting up lights is only half the work — fixing them is the real trial!*

Where to Start?

Many folks wonder how we begin when there is so much area to cover. I like to start every year by stringing lights around the pond. This is an easy job that gets me mentally warmed up to spend the next few weeks working with lights and wires. Because we have been doing this for so many years, we have a pretty good idea of how many strands it takes to get around the pond (31) or tied onto the leaf house (3) or draped in the small prairie near the Visitor Center (18). We have some lights labeled for specific areas. Others are stored on spools so they can easily be unrolled and installed.

Style

Many public gardens throughout the US put on holiday light shows, and each is dazzling in their own way. Here at Dyck Arboretum we have a unique approach: we aim to highlight the natural landscape rather than cover it with colorful, flashy displays. We keep our style simple and classic. For example, we use only warm white Christmas lights, under-mounted spotlights, and thematically relevant features. Foregoing busy, strobe-like displays or loud music, we invite visitors to appreciate the forms and shapes of native trees in the quiet of a prairie night. You may hear an owl hooting as you stroll, or the sound of water trickling into the stream.

*White swans float on the pond among reflections of our large footbridge and stately bald cypress tree. Photo from 2017 by Lowell Flory*

Features

Over the years we have trialed many new features to keep Luminary Walk feeling fresh, even to repeat visitors. Some years we have lighted ‘swans’ floating on the pond and ‘bison’ grazing in our prairie. Other years we installed shooting stars high above our lawns and have created arbors, tunnels, and pendulous hanging ornaments. The only way to know what we are up to this year? Come and see for yourself!

In 2018 my father and I created a life-size wire bison to be strung with lights and displayed in the Prairie Window Project. We started by drawing a properly scaled silhouette of a bison and bent the flat steel into shape with pipe wrenches.

We hope this event can be a fun and festive time to meet with family and friends at a socially distant, outdoor venue. Visit the event page for ticketing and for information about how this event will be COVID-conscious, specifically:

adding event hours to reduce crowding
capping ticket sales per half hour
closing our facilities to indoor traffic
reducing the need for volunteer set up and take down
requiring face masks for all attendees

*I focus on outdoor decorations, but the rest of the staff and volunteers have the job of beautifying our indoor facilities*. **Reminder: Indoor facilities will be closed this year.**

Enjoy our holiday event Thanksgiving Weekend November 27-29 or Closing Weekend December 4-6.