Christmas Light Installation in Arlington, TX
Arlington is home to a neighborhood display so well attended that the police run its traffic. You don't need to live on the route to borrow its standard — or to hand the ladder work to someone else. Full-service C9 LED, custom-cut to your roofline.
Full-service C9 LED — design, install, maintenance, takedown, and storage in one price.
We install Christmas lights across Arlington as a full-service lease: we own the commercial-grade C9 LED lights, cut them to your roofline, clip them on, keep them lit through the season, take them down in January, and store them. Arlington is roughly 30 to 40 minutes from our Lewisville base — one of the longer drives in our service area, and the service is the same. Published DFW market rates: $5–$12 per linear foot, most homes $700–$2,500+. Quotes are free and usually need no site visit.
A Sales Pitch That Never Ended
The Interlochen lights did not begin as a tradition. They began as marketing.
In 1976 the Vernor family, living in one of the few finished houses in a then-new north Arlington subdivision, decorated for Christmas. The following year the developer put up prize money for a decorating contest — the idea, as a resident told CBS News Texas in 2015, was to get people to drive through and buy lots. These days the win comes with bragging rights and not much else.
The lots sold. The lights stayed. The City of Arlington counted 2025 as the display's 50th anniversary, and what the city publishes each December reads less like an event listing and more like a traffic plan.
| Interlochen Lights | What the City Published for 2025 |
|---|---|
| Homes taking part | Nearly 200 homeowners in the northwest Arlington neighborhood |
| Visitors | An estimated 100,000-plus from across the region |
| Open to drive through | 6 to 10 p.m. nightly, December 13 through 25; free |
| The way in | One entrance, Westwood Drive at Randol Mill Road; every other street into the neighborhood closed |
| Traffic | Arlington Police traffic control posts; keep right; no passing once you are on the route |
| Time | About an hour to travel the route, and waits to enter that often exceed an hour |
Source: City of Arlington, "Enjoy 50th Year of Interlochen Lights in Arlington from Dec. 13-25" (arlingtontx.gov, checked October 2026). Dates for the 2026 season had not been published when we checked — look for the city's notice before you go. We are not affiliated with the neighborhood or its display.
Lighting That Survives a Slow Pass
An hour on the route with no passing allowed means every house gets looked at by people with nowhere to go and nothing else to do. Most rooflines are judged from a car at ordinary street speed.
Lines get read end to end
At a crawl, a sagging run or a strand that stops two feet short of the corner is the first thing anyone notices. Our C9 lines are cut to the measured length of each roof edge, so a run starts and ends where the architecture does — no coiled leftovers tucked behind a downspout.
One white, not three
Strands bought in different years do not always match, and side by side a mismatch shows. One set of bulbs across the whole house keeps the color consistent from gable to garage. If you are weighing the choice, our warm white vs. multicolor guide lays it out.
The dark bulb is the headline
A whole roofline lit and one bulb out, and the one that is out is what gets remembered. In-season repair visits are part of the seasonal price, so a dark section is our problem to fix, not a cold Saturday on a ladder for you.
How it goes up matters too: everything is mounted with clips — nothing screwed or stapled into fascia or stone. See how the core service works on the roofline lighting page, or add trunks and canopies with tree & landscape lighting.
Two Dates Already on the 2026 Calendar
Interlochen's schedule comes later. These two are already published.
Texas Christkindl Market
The 16th annual market runs November 20–22 and November 27 through December 23, 2026, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, at 1650 E. Randol Mill Road. The organizers trace its inspiration to Arlington's German sister city, Bad Königshofen, and it carries Käthe Wohlfahrt merchandise (txchristkindlmarket.com, checked October 2026).
Holiday Lights Parade
Saturday, December 12, 2026, downtown: Reindeer Games from 2 to 5 p.m., the parade at 6 p.m., then the mayor and Santa light a 65-foot tree. The city says it goes on rain, snow, or shine — ice and lightning excepted (arlingtontx.gov, checked October 2026).
Read the calendar the way an installer does: the market opens November 20, squarely inside install season, which runs late October through early December. A house meant to be lit by parade night needs its install date settled well before then — our booking guide explains why the calendar tightens when it does.
Thirty-Odd Minutes South of Our Shop
We are based in Lewisville, in Denton County. Arlington is in Tarrant County, south past Grapevine and the airport. It is not next door, and this page is not going to pretend it is.
Lewisville to Arlington
A rough figure for ordinary traffic; north Arlington is the short end and the far south side is the long one.
Usually all a quote needs
Most quotes need no site visit. Text a photo of the house and you get a labeled design mockup back with the number, wherever in Arlington you are.
The same lease at any distance
Design, install, repair visits, January takedown, and storage. What we will not do is print a response-time promise that was written to sound good on a webpage.
Who shows up: our crew has lit 500+ DFW homes over the past decade, working by referral before this family-run business opened to the public for the 2026 season.
What an Arlington roofline costs: published DFW market data runs $5–$12 per linear foot for full-service C9 LED, with most homes at $700–$2,500+. Those are market ranges, not a price list — the footage you choose to light is what moves the total, and lighting the street-facing elevation only is a perfectly respectable way to keep it down. Sourced breakdown on the DFW cost page.
Nearby: Fort Worth · Irving & Las Colinas · Grapevine · Colleyville
Wondering what your roofline measures? Estimate your footage in 60 seconds.
Arlington, Asked Plainly
How much does Christmas light installation cost in Arlington?
Published DFW market data runs $5–$12 per linear foot for full-service C9 LED, and most DFW homes land between $700 and $2,500+. Those are market ranges, not our price list — the length of roofline you choose to light drives the number, and quotes are free.
Is the Interlochen lights display happening in 2026?
As of early October 2026 the City of Arlington had not yet published dates for this season. The display marked its 50th anniversary in 2025, when the city opened the drive-through route from 6 to 10 p.m. nightly, December 13 through 25, with a single entrance at Westwood Drive and Randol Mill Road. It is a long-running annual tradition, so check arlingtontx.gov for the 2026 schedule and traffic plan before you go.
How far is Arlington from your Lewisville base?
Roughly 30 to 40 minutes in ordinary traffic, depending on which part of Arlington you are in — it is one of the farther cities we serve, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. The service is the same full-service lease at that distance: design, installation, in-season repair visits, January takedown, and storage in one seasonal price.
Do I have to live in Interlochen to get a display like that?
No. We serve all of Arlington, and the things that make a display hold up to a slow line of cars — straight custom-cut lines, one consistent color, no dark bulbs — work on any street. We are not affiliated with the Interlochen neighborhood or its display; it is simply the local benchmark worth learning from.
When should Arlington homes book?
As early as you can. Installs run from late October through early December, and by late October calendars across DFW are genuinely tight — November callers often land on waitlists. The earlier you ask, the more install dates are still open.
Keep the Standard, Skip the Ladder
Text a photo of the house and you get a number and a design to look at — and no one asks you to store a single strand in the garage.
Get My Free QuoteGet My Free Quote
Step 1 of 2 — tell us what you'd like lit.
Prefer to talk? Call or text (469) 333-1120.