Last December, the porch bands and wrapped oaks of Lights in the Heights lined Bayland and Woodland. This December they move to Highland and Omar. The Woodland Heights Civic Association has set the 39th annual event for Saturday, December 12, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Highland and Omar now supply the porches, lights and volunteers the event runs on. Lights in the Heights has no permanent stage and no hired production company. Each year the neighbors on the featured streets build it themselves, one porch, one strand of lights and one donated dollar at a time. The rest of the Heights' December calendar is arranged around that one Saturday.
A route that depends on porches
The WHCA's 2026 Lights in the Heights page says the City of Houston Special Events office has approved this year's route. The event keeps its usual date, the second Saturday in December. The city's special events listing shows Highland and Omar closed starting at Studewood from 4:00 to 10:00 p.m. That gives volunteers two hours to set up before the first visitors arrive and an hour to clear the streets afterward.
The music comes from front porches, as it has since the first year. Musicians from around the city volunteer their time, and neighbors on the route volunteer their porches. Woodland Heights neighbor Joy Roth coordinates both this year. The WHCA has asked every household on Highland and Omar to consider offering a porch, and Roth will find a musician to play from it at no cost to the homeowner. Fewer porches mean fewer bands, so how much music the route has depends on how many households on two streets agree to host.
Placing the acts is harder than it sounds. In the WHCA president's recap of the 2025 event, he described the work of fitting a choir or bell chorus between DJs and electric bands. He also named some of last year's performers: the Brazilian Blues Band on a Woodland porch, a young band from Bojangles Music School on Bayland and a School of Rock band on the Norhill Esplanade. He and his wife walked the whole 2025 route in about 90 minutes, and he described the crowds as moderate, with no "crush" of people.
The event has been built this way since 1987. That year, Woodland Heights neighbors lined their curbs, driveways and porches with luminaries and served refreshments on the Norhill Esplanade. A WHCA newsletter from 1989 reported that the first event drew 20,000 people, and the name "Lights in the Heights" appears to date from that same year.
What Highland and Omar take on this year
Hosting the route also puts a house in front of judges. The 2026 Home Decorating Contest will be judged on Thursday, December 10. A panel of volunteers will score the houses on Highland and Omar plus any other Woodland Heights homes that neighbors nominate. Winners hear early Saturday morning and get a sign to display during the event that evening. This year's categories are:
- Most Crafty, Most Colorful, Most Creative and Most Wattage
- Most Traditional, Most Historical and Best Single Color
- Best Theme, Best Movie Theme and Best Team Theme
- Best Tree, Best Block, Most Musical and Most Yummy
- Pick of the Night and Ho! Ho! Ho!
The judges may add categories based on what they see. Best Block and Best Team Theme reward neighbors who coordinate with each other. In 2025, that kind of block-wide effort showed up in the 900 block of Bayland, where neighbors wrapped the old oaks in white lights and strung colored lights across the street.
Some of the lighting doesn't move with the route. Neighbors Pat Rutledge and Louise Moss have long overseen the lights on the Watson Street Esplanade, and Humbug Holiday Lighting sponsors that display this year.
The Norhill dinosaurs need more help this year
The best-known fixture of Lights in the Heights stays in the same place every year. For more than a decade, electric dinosaurs built by Ward Pennebaker have stood on the Norhill Esplanade during the holidays. According to the WHCA, the display has grown to the point that it now takes a professional lighting company to set up, take down, store and repair the dinosaurs safely.
For the past couple of years, a small group of neighbors has quietly paid for that work. This year the WHCA is asking the wider neighborhood to contribute through its online store, under the name "Save the Dinosaurs From Extinction." Tiffany Tyler coordinates the dinosaur project and its fundraising. The committee also donated a fence-mountable LITH dinosaur to the live auction at this fall's fundraiser, so one household can keep a dinosaur of its own. At last year's Friday Night Lights, the WHCA and Council Member Castillo's office honored Ward and Susan Pennebaker with a city proclamation recognizing their years of building the dinosaurs.
The rest of the event runs on neighborhood money too. Ticket sales, auction items and sponsorships from the LITH Boots & Bow Ties BASH, held October 15 at the Historic Heights Fire Station, pay for the December event's city permits, officer security and portable restrooms. Gabby's BBQ, Eureka Heights Brew Co. and Kagan Cellars supplied the food and drinks for that party. Memorial Hermann Greater Heights is this year's Gold Sponsor, and the merchant donors include Tiny's Milk & Cookies, Rumor Has It Day Spa, January Moon and Hanley Handmade.
19th Street and the Home Tour come first
Because Lights in the Heights takes the second Saturday, the rest of the Heights' holiday season falls on the weeks before it and the day after.
It starts on Saturday, November 28, with Small Biz Saturday on 19th Street in the Heights. Holiday on 19th Street follows on Friday, December 4. The street's merchants say most shops are open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and they suggest checking with each shop for its own hours.
That same Friday evening, the Houston Heights Association opens its 2026 Holiday Home Tour. The tour runs from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on December 4, and continues from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 5. On December 4, you can shop 19th Street and tour Heights homes on the same night.
The Lights in the Heights weekend
The next weekend is built around the walk, and it has three parts:
- Friday, December 11: Friday Night Lights. This neighbors-only event takes place on the Norhill Esplanade from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. Pre-ordered LITH ornaments are picked up here. This year there are two: a cloisonné ornament and a glass one. Both use a design by a young neighborhood artist that WHCA members picked at their July meeting. Last year's ornaments sold out, and the WHCA had to reorder.
- Saturday, December 12: Lights in the Heights. The walk runs from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Highland and Omar, starting at Studewood, with the streets closed from 4:00 to 10:00 p.m.
- Sunday, December 13: The HHA Mistletoe Market. The Mistletoe Market runs from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. at Houston Heights City Hall & Fire Station, 107 W. 12th Street. That is the same historic firehouse where the Boots & Bow Ties fundraiser was held in October.
Last year's parking and bike arrangements are a useful guide. In 2025, Zion Lutheran Church offered pay-what-you-can parking in its lot at Beauchamp and Pecore and gave the proceeds to its youth summer camps. BikeHouston ran a supervised bike lockup that held more than 100 bikes. Those were 2025 arrangements. The WHCA posts updates for the current year on its Lights in the Heights page.
If you'd like to help, the volunteer and sponsor contacts are on that page. Neighbors can email [email protected] to volunteer, and businesses can email [email protected] to become sponsors. Households on Highland and Omar can reach Joy Roth at [email protected] to offer a porch for a musician.
If your home is on this year's route, or you're thinking about a spring sale and want to hear how the Heights' busiest December weekend affects showings and photography, Melissa King is glad to talk it through. Book a complimentary home strategy call, and we'll plan your timing around the calendar.
