Kicking Off Christmas: 4.5 Hours That Take a Year to Plan

With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, we have officially entered the undisputed winter holiday window. Well-intentioned folks often disagree on when Christmas music and decorations should be placed on public display: at the first cold snap? Midnight on December 1? As soon as the Cowboys wrap up their Turkey Day showdown?

Here in the Christmas Capital of Texas, the answer is simple: as soon as the sun sets on the Monday before the fourth Thursday in November.

While local businesses are free to run their own holiday activations – and many host a ‘Christmas in July’ celebration to keep the spirit alive all year – the season doesn’t truly begin until the trees are lit on Main Street. Unless, of course, you’re part of the team that stages the annual Carol of Lights. They start thinking about our next 40-day holiday activation on January 1.

The Parks and Recreation Workshop

Decking the entire City with boughs of holly is a tall order, so teams from the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and Grapevine Parks and Recreation start early, staging components before the first cold fronts arrive in October. Nothing is lit until the official ceremony on the week of Thanksgiving, but every bulb and barrier is meticulously plotted in meetings that run all year long. Especially post-COVID, when the Carol of Lights and every event that follows saw a boom in popularity.

“I started in August of 2022, so this will actually be my third Christmas Capital of Texas, if you can believe it,” said Erin Rodriguez, Events Manager for Grapevine Parks and Recreation. “The first year I did Carol of Lights was the first year it expanded all the way from Northwest Highway to Dallas Road, so that was a really cool opportunity because there wasn’t much of a guide… in the Community Events team, we had the unique opportunity to kind of make something almost out of nothing. We had this great template based on three or four blocks, but we needed to extend it all the way down. Then, going into Year Two, we took the success of Year One and built off it. Now, in Year Three – because we were so successful last year, because we invited so many people out to enjoy with us – we have to figure out how to do it in a way that’s as fun and safe as possible.”

To accomplish that goal, the team has to start early and expect change.

“By the summertime, really, our big picture plan is in place,” Rodriguez said. “After that, we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty. Working through things. It takes time for equipment to come in, we have a lot of feedback from the community and Council… it’s just about taking all of those different opinions and finding something in the middle. That’s really what we do in Community Events, and in special events in general flexibility is key. That’s the basics of everything: we’re going to go into the events with the best plan we possibly could come up with, but once we get out there on the street things are going to move and change.”

While key components of the event stay the same from year to year, the Parks team is committed to finding new and better ways to celebrate. Rodriguez says that’s part of the team culture, and every employee is passionate about innovating even as they focus on intricate details. But Stephen Chevier, a veteran member of the department who now serves as Recreation Coordinator, says that trend has been accelerating as the City gains notoriety and the population of DFW grows.

“I’ve been working these events for ten-plus years, and prior to COVID I don’t think we saw half as many people come out,” said Stephen Chevier, Recreation Coordinator for the Parks Department. “Within the past three years, it has grown so much. I’m glad we’ve been given the opportunity to use all of Main Street, because if we were still putting on a one-block event in front of City Hall or the gazebo [in Town Square], there’s no way we would be able to hold as many people as are coming out nowadays.”

Years of Expertise, Attention to Detail Make the Magic Happen

There’s no shortage of talent in the Parks department, and Rodriguez credits much of their success to individual creativity and collective effort. Everything from animatronic snowmen that serenade visitors to detailed maps and crowd management plans is handled in-house, and most of the elements that require a third-party vendor still get direct input from City staff. Altogether, their efforts add up to a simple target: a sense of awe reminiscent of Disney World.

“If you’re thinking Disney, you kind of have those Imagineers, right? That’s their whole job. For us, it’s every division. Every staff member really has that mentality already, so there’s not any one person that’s creating all this magic – whether on Main Street or anywhere else in the City – it’s every single staff member. We all have the mentality that we need to be doing more. Going above and beyond. We need to create magic ourselves with whatever it is we touch,” Rodriguez said. 

“I’ve worked in Recreation for about 15 years, and I’ve worked in about five cities at this point. Grapevine is above and beyond any other organization I’ve ever worked for, and really it’s because we do so much in house... The staff we have always want to be the biggest and the best. What’s that wow factor going to be? And they’re willing to take it on and put in the extra hours and time because it’s something they believe in.”

It would be easy to assume she’s referring to big things like drone shows and programmed laser displays, but the real magic is much more precise, hidden in details so small most people won’t ever notice or think about them. According to Jennifer Neal, owner of Grapevine Food Tours and Creating Magic Vacations – a travel company specializing in Disney packages – that’s a common thread from Main Street to the Magic Kingdom.

“There are so many aspects of trying to create the Disney magic. One of the things that Walt did was just sit back and watch how long people would hold a piece of trash in their hand before they just dropped it and littered. It’s about thirty steps; people will hold trash for about thirty steps, and if they don’t find a trash can before then, they’ll drop it and litter. So that’s what you see: trash cans are about thirty steps apart all over the parks,” Neal said. 

“So for Grapevine, and for [decoration supervisor Tony Steele], to want to know that level of detail so that he can create an experience? He doesn’t want us looking down. He wants our eyes up and just in awe. Feeling magical and feeling nostalgic, like we’re safe and we’re part of this amazing thing that’s been created for us. And that’s exactly the same thing Walt was trying to do… You can’t enjoy yourself if you’re hungry or you’re cold or you have to go to the bathroom and you can’t find a bathroom. It doesn’t matter how great the Drone Show was if I didn’t feel comfortable being in the middle of the street to watch it. You have to satisfy those basic needs before people can come up and enjoy the aesthetics.”

But the need to feel safe and the desire to be part of something bigger than yourself can occasionally conflict.

Adding Data-Driven Decisions to the (Wintry) Mix

The Christmas Capital of Texas activation has grown so much in the last few years that some residents and stakeholders raised concerns about efforts to manage the tens of thousands of visitors who descend on the area for hours at a time throughout the final six weeks of the year. This year, the Historic District welcomed a crowd equal to roughly 41% of Grapevine’s total population for Carol of Lights. As such, it’s become essential not only to add barricades and expand the sidewalks in December, but to fully close Main Street several times over the holidays. And no level of institutional knowledge can solve that problem entirely.

Fortunately, Grapevine Economic Development was able to use foot traffic estimates from Placer.ai to help the Parks and Recreation team make strategic changes for big events like the Merry and Bright Drone Show and Carol of Lights.

“In our minds last year, we thought everyone was going to congregate and kind of stay in the area the drones launch from. But what we found from the data is that people, before and after, were actually on the far side of Main Street; trying to spread out from those crowds,” Rodriguez said. “So what we learned is that we need time before, we need time after, and we need a bigger zone for people to safely move around. That played into a lot of the decision to close the entirety of Main Street... and also having accessibility for our businesses, because of course we want our merchants on Main Street to get the economic impact from the people that are coming down.”

By analyzing everything from the City’s busiest winter hours to the top prior and post destinations for families who visited Main Street last year, the Parks team could make informed decisions about which elements of their program to change. They added more food options and family-friendly activities to the outskirts of the Historic District, clearing space for a “pedestrian thoroughfare” on Main Street itself. Planned a broader drone show, visible from any point and Main Street. They even reduced the size of certain elements to create more points of engagement throughout the event space. And, more importantly, they felt confident as they announced those changes.

“I think what’s really helpful about the data, in particular, is getting the support in decisions that we already knew we needed to make. We understood that Carol and the Drone Shows were bring in tens of thousands of people. We knew that already. But it’s really hard when I am the only one saying it – or there are specific people that are saying this – but now we have backup, with our data,” Rodriguez said.

“So we can go to some of our merchants and say ‘hey, we may need to close a little bit earlier on Main Street today, to make sure that we bring in our equipment appropriately and that people are as safe as possible. But, see here, we have nineteen thousand people that are going to be on Main Street today.’ So your economic impact, even if we’re going to shut down the street for an extra hour, is still very high. So that’s what’s been really helpful; going into meetings with our community organizations [and with sponsors]. This has been really helpful with sponsors for our community, because before I had a clicker and I was trying to take account of thirty-thousand-plus people… having actual data to show the impact has been really helpful.”

We won’t know just how effective those changes will be until the team reviews the new data. But if the smiles on display in late November are any indication, they’re on the right track.

To hear this story straight from the Elves themselves, listen to the ‘Growing Grapevine’ podcast here on our site or with your favorite streaming app. You can also find us on social media, reach out directly to staff, or join our monthly newsletter for ongoing updates about the City of Grapevine.