Festival of Lights

The town of Hidalgo, Texas, on the Mexican border just South of McAllen, Texas, is one of the oldest towns in The Valley, founded in 1749. The citizens of Hidalgo have, for many years, extensively decorated their town with lights for the Christmas Season. They named it The Festival of Lights with a by line of "You Have to See it to Believe it!" . . . and I think they're right.
















The lighted decorations are spread over several city parks and around a number of city buildings. Their setup includes horse-drawn carriage and trolley car tours of all of the displays. We opted for the trolley tour.

The light displays are quite varied . . .

From a pirate ship . . .














To the space shuttle . . .















From Cinderella's Coach . . . to Santa's sleigh and reindeer . . .
















And they had an area titled "Christmas Around the World", which included the Eiffel Tower of Paris, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and a dragon from China.
















They also had a number of wildlife images. Below are butterflies and a peacock . . .

















. . . . plus a dinosaur . . . and a bear on ice skates!
















In addition to the light images set up by the City of Hidalgo, several large homes across the street from City Hall also had massive displays . . .
















But the biggest surprise of all was the home display with a Mooning Santa in the front yard! This Mooning Santa was electrically operated. He kept pulling his pants down, then pulling them up again. What will they think of next?

The City of Hidalgo has been producing The Festival of Lights for many years. It has become a local tradition for people to come from miles around to see the annual show. This City has sure learned how to put on a light show. As they say, "You Have to See it to Believe it!"