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I am writing this column just before we open our doors for the first night of the 2024 Magic Christmas in Lights festival – our 29th annual celebration of the holiday season at Bellingrath Gardens & Home. In the coming nights and weeks, we’ll literally see tens of thousands of visitors come to our doors from near and afar, all eager to see the light show that we’re presenting this year.
Starting in 1995, Bellingrath opened its doors in the evenings for a holiday celebration with lights bedecking the gardens and hand-made set pieces. Executive Director Bob Pearson had traveled the year before to Callaway Gardens to see their light show, only to be toured around by Bill Barrick, who would become Bellingrath’s next executive director in 1999. (The public garden world is indeed small, but I don’t know if there could be any closer degree of separation than this!) I recently discovered a letter written in 1995 from Bob Pearson to BGH’s volunteers, thanking them for staffing and running the Magic Christmas show – an interesting factoid I had not before heard.
Under Bill’s guidance, Magic Christmas in Lights was perfected in the early 2000s through his own creative energies, coupled with those of Clare Graham, a Disney “Imagineer” and artist. The show achieved huge success in the 2000s, reaching its zenith of popularity in 2012 with over 90,000 visitors. Furthermore, under Bill’s leadership, the Magic Christmas show was run by staff, and the actual set pieces that display the lights were created in-house by BGH’s staff. One person who was of particular importance in creating these metal set pieces was Greg Hill, who sadly passed away in 2020 at too young of an age.
Upon arriving at BGH in September of 2020, I quickly learned about the all-consuming nature of our annual holiday show. Observing it both as it was set up and then opened to the public on November 27, 2020, I explored the show to embrace its spirit but also critique it. The staff had wisely decided to create the new Mardi Gras scene during the summer of 2020, and that allowed us to exhibit a new scene for the first time in eight years. I decided to bring in the expertise of landscape designer and holiday light show planner Tres Fromme for a review in early December 2020. Through Tres’ and my observations, and with approval from the board, we embarked on a new master plan for Magic Christmas in Lights, and this was completed by mid-2022.
Through the involvement of key BGH staff with Mr. Fromme and HDLA of Nashville, TN, the new MCIL master plan calls for years of new or modified scenes and the embracing of modern technology such as LED lights and choreographed motion of these lights in selected areas. New scenes were opened both during the development of the new plan and every year since it was completed: 2021’s Phoenix and Dragon, 2022’s Rose Garden Pink Tunnels, and 2023’s Christmas Corridor behind the Admissions Building. For this year, our theme is “Peace on Earth,” and our new Magic Christmas scene is located in the space where the gazebo formerly stood in the “Gazebo Garden.” We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as you have our past years.
Bellingrath Gardens & Home is greatly thankful and appreciative of the patronage you exhibit toward us, not only in the holiday season, but also throughout the year. What we promise you for 2024’s show and for future years is a spirit of continual improvement and creation of new exhibits that will delight your senses and reward you with a celebration of the holiday spirit and season.
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