By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
True to its small-town traditions, Dickinson will again be holding its annual Dickinson Festival of Lights for the 27th year. The show is provided by the Dickinson Festival of lights Society. (DFLS)
This year promises to bring numerous new lighted delights along with all the old-time favorites.
Several of the new pieces were built by Jackie Norton and Darrell Faust. The couple met at the festival in 2023 while they were both performing community service.
They loved decorating Paul Hopkins Park with Christmas cheer so much they spent their free time during the year building a Santa fishing in a canoe. Along with building Santa Fishing, Darrell worked on a rocket ship that promises to be 20 feet tall.
But it seems the couple’s favorite décor is the new spaceship with an alien hovering above its flying saucer. Both jumped in to describe the flying saucer.
“It’s going to be about six feet off the ground and it’ll have beams of light coming down from the saucer,” Darrell and Jackie explained as they demonstrated the size of the alien spaceship with their arms opening into a wide circle.
When you go, be sure you look over close to the bridge on FM-517. Cloistered among living trees is another new addition to the Christmas light show, a dancing lighted tree.
“It doesn’t look like much in the daylight,” said Greg Gnat Vice President of DFLS
Greg promises it will be dancing and fully lit up come opening night. Though he is not so sure if it will be moving and grooving to the music this year, he’s just sure that it will be dancing and lighted.
Old Glory will be brightly displayed on the wooden pedestrian bridge in the middle of the park crossing over the bayou. She can be seen with her 50 stars twinkling bright and 13 stripes shinning in red and white as you drive or walk down FM-517 when it’s all lite up.
The crew of volunteers has spent 1000’s of hours putting together the Christmas light show which is a totally free event for everyone to enjoy. Santa will be hanging around every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night for all who wish to have a photo taken with Santa and tell him their Christmas wishes.
The light show is a walk-through event held at Paul Hopkins Park. Weather permitting, the show will open November 30 and run nightly through December 30, except, of course, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, December 24 and 25. The volunteers will be enjoying Christmas with their families on those days.
Parking and shuttle services are free and will be running Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and then every night from December 20 through December 23.
Parking is courtesy of the Shrine of the True Cross Catholic Church.
To find the church: on I-45 Exit 19 , FM-517, head east and the church will be one block down on the right. Guests with limited mobility can be dropped off at the park where the buses load and unload. Street parking during the shuttle service periods is highly discouraged for safety reasons. Parking for people with disabilities is available with proper Identification.
The last inbound shuttle bus runs at 8:30 p.m., and outbound shuttles will continue to run until the park is empty.
Remember: all parking and shuttle Buses are free, and the walk-through event is also free.
Paul Hopkins Park is located at 1000 FM 517 Rd. E. in Dickinson, Texas
For more information on how you can donate your time or money, visit https://www.dfoltx.com/.
