Bellingrath Gardens’ Magic Christmas in Lights display, a Theodore holiday tradition now in its 19th year, finished sixth nationally in USA Today’s reader-choice ranking of the best public light displays in the country.
The Mobile County attraction competed against 20 nominees nationwide in the newspaper’s online poll, ultimately falling just short of the top five after Callaway Gardens’ Fantasy in Lights display in Georgia overtook it in the closing hours of voting. Riverside, California’s Mission Inn Hotel & Spa claimed the top spot, followed by Downtown St. Augustine’s Night of Lights in Florida, a James Island, South Carolina holiday festival, and a light show at Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Resort.
Tourism officials in Mobile welcomed the sixth-place finish as validation of the display’s national profile. The head of the Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau said the ranking reinforces Bellingrath’s standing as one of the country’s most significant garden estates, calling the recognition a point of pride for the local community.
Magic Christmas in Lights transforms the 65-acre garden estate along the Fowl River each winter, with more than three million individual lights arranged into roughly 1,000 separate displays scattered across the grounds. The show draws visitors from across the Gulf Coast and beyond during its annual run, adding to Bellingrath’s reputation as one of South Alabama’s signature attractions alongside its better-known spring azalea season.
This holiday season’s display remains open to visitors nightly from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. through Jan. 3, with the exception of Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, when the gardens close entirely. Organizers have used the multi-week run to give both local families and out-of-town visitors repeated chances to see the lights, often scheduling repeat visits around the surrounding holidays.
The national recognition adds to a growing list of accolades for Bellingrath Gardens, which has spent decades building a reputation well beyond South Alabama. Local tourism leaders have pointed to rankings like the USA Today poll as evidence that the estate continues to compete with much larger, better-funded holiday attractions elsewhere in the country.
For Theodore and the surrounding Mobile County community, the light display remains one of the most visible symbols of the area’s identity each winter, drawing both financial benefits from tourism and civic pride from the annual voting recognition.