Bellingrath Magic Christmas in Lights in Running for USA Today National Ranking

A popular Mobile-area holiday attraction is once again competing for national recognition. Bellingrath Gardens and Home’s Magic Christmas in Lights in Theodore has been nominated for USA Today’s annual Best Botanical Garden Holiday Lights ranking, where readers vote for the top public displays in the country.

The Theodore gardens previously made the USA Today list in 2018, finishing in sixth place nationally in a reader-choice ranking of the best public light displays. Callaway Gardens in Georgia edged out Bellingrath in the closing hours of that year’s voting to claim the fifth spot, a narrow miss that left local fans eager for a rematch on the national stage.

The nomination puts Bellingrath back in a friendly but genuine competition with some of the most celebrated botanical gardens in the Southeast, and voting gives Gulf Coast residents a direct role in how the region’s signature holiday display ranks nationally.

Reader-voted rankings have become a meaningful battleground for Southern attractions in recent years, and Alabama properties have done well when their fan bases mobilize. Bellingrath’s 2018 sixth-place finish proved the gardens can compete with any display in the country; the goal this time is to convert that support into a top-five spot.

A Dazzling Spread Across 65 Acres

Guests who visit the sprawling attraction get to tour a dazzling light display spread across Bellingrath Gardens’ 65-acre property. The grounds are open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., with the last tickets for Magic Christmas in Lights sold at 9 p.m., giving visitors a long window to experience the gardens both in daylight and after dark, when the lights transform the paths and plantings.

The scale of the display is what separates Bellingrath from ordinary neighborhood light shows. Guests walk beneath arches of light, past reflecting ponds and flower beds reimagined in holiday colors, along routes designed to showcase the garden’s mature oaks, camellias and waterfront views even in the depths of the off-season.

For many Gulf Coast families, an evening at Magic Christmas in Lights has become an annual tradition in the same way that trees, stockings and Christmas Eve services have — a ritual repeated across generations and shared with visiting relatives each December.

A Made-in-Alabama Tradition

The display, now more than 25 years old, has a distinctly home-grown character. According to Bellingrath’s website, every element of the light show is designed, welded, painted and wired by Bellingrath staff, with three employees working full-time all year on the display alone.

Each set piece is built on the grounds, giving the attraction a uniquely handmade quality that sets it apart from larger, corporate-produced holiday shows. That craft approach means the display evolves year to year, with new scenes and reworked favorites, rather than being shipped in and set up the way a rented production would be.

The year-round effort also explains the display’s longevity. While many seasonal attractions assemble their shows in a compressed burst each fall, Bellingrath’s crew spends the entire calendar designing and fabricating, which shows in the detail work that visitors photograph and remember long after the season ends.

The volunteer and staff pride behind the show is part of what regulars talk about most. Knowing that each scene was cut, welded and painted a short walk from where it glows gives longtime visitors a sense of ownership over the display, and returning each year to see what the crew has added has become part of the tradition.

Bellingrath Gardens and Home itself is a Gulf Coast landmark with roots stretching back to the estate of Walter and Bessie Bellingrath, whose gardens opened to the public in the 1930s and have drawn visitors ever since. The holiday display extends that legacy into the winter months, when the gardens would otherwise see their quietest stretch of the year.

The Competition in 2022

Bellingrath is not the only Alabama property up for consideration. Huntsville Botanical Garden’s Galaxy of Lights is also on the 2022 nomination list, giving the state two entries in the national ranking for the first time in recent memory.

Other regional competitors include two Florida displays, Dazzling Nights at Harry P. Leu Gardens in Orlando and Lights in Bloom at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, as well as two Georgia entries, Garden Lights Holiday Nights at Atlanta Botanical Garden and Fantasy In Lights at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain. The Southeast is well represented in the field, a reflection of how thoroughly the region’s gardens have embraced holiday lighting as a winter draw.

The presence of Callaway on the list adds a familiar edge to the voting. It was Callaway that slipped past Bellingrath into fifth place in the final hours of the 2018 contest, and Gulf Coast voters who remember that finish have an easy motivation to vote early and often this time around.

How the Voting Works

USA Today’s annual ranking relies on reader votes collected through its website over a set period each fall, making community support a decisive factor in which displays finish at the top. The format rewards loyal audiences, and gardens with engaged local followings — as Bellingrath has along the Gulf Coast — tend to perform well when word gets out.

For Theodore and the greater Mobile area, a strong national showing carries practical benefits beyond bragging rights. National rankings drive travel coverage, and a top placement on a USA Today list often translates into out-of-town visitors who plan December trips around the attraction, filling hotels and restaurants across the region during what is traditionally the slow season for Gulf Coast tourism.

Local pride is already part of the equation. Bellingrath is one of the Mobile area’s most storied destinations, and a campaign to vote for the gardens gives residents across Mobile and Baldwin counties a shared cause heading into the holidays.

The timing also matters. Nominations are announced well before the display opens for the season, which means the voting push builds anticipation in the weeks leading up to opening night — and gardens that finish high in the rankings typically carry that momentum straight into strong attendance when their own light shows begin.

Why the Display Matters to the Region

Attractions like Magic Christmas in Lights play an outsized role in the Gulf Coast’s tourism calendar. The coast’s economy leans heavily on beach season, and gardens, museums and historic sites carry the visitor economy through the cooler months. A nationally ranked holiday show gives travelers a reason to book a Mobile-area trip in December, extending the tourism year well past Labor Day.

The handmade character of the display adds to its regional significance. The show is a genuine Alabama product, built by local craftspeople on local grounds, and its national recognition reflects work that has gone on quietly in Theodore year-round for more than a quarter century.

As voting unfolds in the fall, supporters will be watching the leaderboard with the memory of 2018 in mind — a sixth-place finish that came within a single spot of the top five, edged out in the closing hours by the very Georgia rival that stands between Bellingrath and redemption this year.

Planning a Visit to the Lights

Guests planning an evening at the gardens have a generous window to work with. With grounds open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and last tickets for the light show sold at 9 p.m., visitors can pair a daytime tour of the estate and its home museum with an after-dark walk through the illuminated grounds, or simply arrive at dusk and experience the display at its brightest.

Weeknight visits tend to be the easiest on crowds, while weekends draw the heaviest traffic from families across Mobile, Baldwin and the Florida Panhandle. Cool December evenings, hot cocoa and a slow walk beneath the lights have made the show a fixture of the local holiday season for more than 25 years.

The Road Ahead for the Ranking

Whether Bellingrath climbs past its 2018 finish depends on the same thing that determined it the first time: votes. The 2018 contest came down to the final hours, with Callaway Gardens surging late to take fifth while Bellingrath settled for sixth, and this year’s ballot again includes the Georgia field alongside strong entries from Huntsville, Orlando, Sarasota and Atlanta.

For now, the nomination itself is a distinction. Being named among the country’s best botanical garden holiday lights places the Theodore attraction alongside the most ambitious displays in the Southeast, and it confirms what Gulf Coast families have known for decades — that a walk through Bellingrath Gardens in December is among the region’s great seasonal experiences, handmade in Alabama and ready for the national spotlight.

As the fall voting period opens, supporters across the Gulf Coast will have their chance to weigh in — and perhaps, this time, to hold off Callaway in the closing hours instead.