If you’ve visited the Dallas Arboretum this Christmas season, you may have wondered how the arboretum transforms into a holiday hallmark each year.
It probably takes a month to complete, or maybe two? Actually, the process starts the last week of July, taking almost five months to finalize before the holiday exhibit begins, Dustin Miller, vice president of Learning and Guest Experience, said.
The first week of August, workers behind the scenes begin building the Christmas Village — taking an entire month to complete — then the 12 Days of Christmas gazebos are installed throughout the garden.
From polishing the 28,000 rhinestones, touching up the 28 hand-carved animals and 55 mannequins, installing 29,000 pounds of art enclosures, building the walkways, decorating greenery in Christmas accessories, and installing millions of lights, it takes up to 100 workers to bring this holiday event to life.
It’s a village that takes a village to create — literally.
The build-out and execution are done by the operations department, artistic individuals to help with final touches and off-duty firefighters helping with the labor and safety of the development.
For the past three to four years, small details have been made to update the holiday exhibit. By swapping out different characters to reflect the diversity of the city, updating fabrics, wigs, and paint details, the Arboretum can continue its traditional style with modern twists, he said.
For the first time, the garden has added colored lights and trees to give it a “whimsical Gumdrop colored area with photo opportunities,” Miller said. More Insta-worthy photo opportunities have been installed in the garden to attract the public, he added.
The tree lights alone consist of over a million twinkling lights, and if that isn’t enough, the LED tree on top of the Dallas Arboretum stage is wrapped in 50,000 light bulbs with new installations added each year.
“When we first opened the 12 Days of Christmas [in 2013], we thought it was going to be a five-year exhibit,” Miller said. Now the exhibit acts as a holiday tradition for many families.
From the beginning of the Christmas Village, they realized it was going to take a lot of power to light the entire exhibit. Because of this, the Arboretum connected with Encore, and now their substation has been put in the neighborhood so the garden could withstand the power.
If only the Christmas feeling could last forever.
The exhibit closes each New Year; here the gazebos are disassembled into all their composite pieces tucked away into giant wooden tombs within 29 semis that have been retrofitted with custom shelves and racks.
As we near the end of this exhibit, we’ll be enjoying the walk around the Christmas lights, sipping our hot chocolate, and awaiting what new additions will be brought next year.
