North Pole + South Pole

Houston's City Lights debuts 11 holiday villages + more magic for 2025

Houston is about to glow brighter than ever when the City Lights Downtown Holiday Magic celebration, presented by Kroger, kicks off Friday, November 21. This year’s event transforms downtown into a North Pole and South Pole wonderland connected by candy-themed trails along Texas Avenue and McKinney Street.

You know how Houston loves to go big, so this year features more lights, bigger installations, and even more themed villages — 11, to be exact.

While City Lights will be up throughout the holiday season, you'll want to be there on day one for the annual tree lighting, featuring a towering 42-foot Christmas tree sparkling with nearly 30,000 lights. It starts at 5:30 pm and is free to attend. Expect live music, craft stations, roaming performers, and a whole lot of festive energy.

What’s new and not-to-miss

Even if you’ve been before, 2025 brings some major new highlights. Most notable is the Astros Light Up the Park, a brand-new village at the ballpark packed with 12 massive light exhibits, interactive installations, baseball-themed wonderlands, and a giant tree built out of baseball ornaments. Part of the proceeds support the Astros Foundation.

Over at POST Houston, Winter Wonderlawn returns with hundreds of thousands of lights across its 5-acre rooftop park, anchored by a 25-foot tree and panoramic skyline views.

Houston First Winter Wonderlawn Winter Wonderlawn turns POST Houston into a magical escape within the city.Photo courtesy of Houston First

Discovery Green’s ice rink is back with themed skate nights and a new collaboration with Space City Light Shows. And Hilton Americas-Houston takes things to the next level with a life-size Disneyland chocolate installation and more than 80,000 lights lining the lobby.

Here's a quick guide to all 11 villages:

North Pole:

Winter Wonderlawn – POST Houston
POST Houston’s 5-acre Skylawn transforms into a massive illuminated rooftop wonderland, glowing with hundreds of thousands of lights and anchored by a 25-foot Christmas tree. Visitors can stroll through multiple holiday activations spread across the rooftop, all set against one of the best skyline views in the city. The ticketed installation runs through January 11, and children 5 and under enter free.

Tinsel Town – Market Square Park
Market Square Park brings back its full lineup of free holiday programming, creating a lively, family-friendly atmosphere in the heart of Historic Market Square. Guests can snap free photos with Santa during Santa’s Saturday Night Lights, enjoy live music and festive roaming entertainment, and settle in for seasonal outdoor films during Movies under the Stars, including a screening of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Tinsel Town also features Deck the Keys, a spirited dueling-piano holiday showdown, plus themed events like Blanket Bingo: Ugly Sweater Edition and an Elf on the Shelf scavenger hunt that sends participants exploring downtown for clues.

Deck the Trees – Alley Theatre
Alley Theatre’s beloved annual tradition returns with 19 exquisitely decorated, artist-designed holiday trees, each one celebrating Houston’s creativity, culture, and artistic spirit. These trees turn the theater lobby into a festive gallery full of intricate themes and imaginative details. Visitors attending the seasonal production of A Christmas Carol can enjoy the display before or after the show, but the public is also welcome to visit the tree exhibition even without purchasing theater tickets.

Jingle Town – Lynn Wyatt Square
Jingle Town makes Lynn Wyatt Square the cheerful hub of the Theater District, offering a mix of hot cocoa, movies, lawn games, family crafts, and plenty of selfie-ready holiday decor. It’s designed as both a pre-show hangout and a standalone holiday destination. Guests can relax among twinkling lights, enjoy live musical performances and carolers, or plan a cozy date night surrounded by the festive ambiance. With programming geared toward both children and adults, there’s something happening in the Square for everyone throughout the season.

Houston First City Hall-iday Lights City Hall-iday Lights starts December 6.Photo courtesy of Houston First

City Hall-iday Lights – City Hall
On December 6, the iconic Deck the Hall presented by Reliant returns to Houston City Hall. Mayor John Whitmire will lead the star-studded holiday spectacular with the lighting of the City Hall tree, a massive, towering centerpiece surrounded by festive displays. Guests can enjoy live music, fireworks, free photos with Santa, and a lively Gingerbread Village complete with arts and crafts, food vendors, and holiday shopping opportunities. It’s one of the city’s biggest public holiday gatherings and totally free to attend.

South Pole:

Astros Light Up the Park – Minute Maid Park
A major new addition for 2025, Astros Light Up the Park presented by Methodist turns the ballpark into an immersive holiday spectacle. Visitors can walk through 12 large-scale light installations celebrating both the Astros and Houston, from glowing landmarks to shimmering northern lights, baseball-themed vignettes, and interactive displays perfect for photos. A winter scene includes snowfall swirling around a giant Christmas tree built entirely from oversized baseball ornaments. This is a ticketed event, and a portion of ticket sales supports the Astros Foundation and community initiatives.

Texas Winter Lights – Marriott Marquis Houston
Marriott Marquis Houston brings back its fan-favorite Texas Winter Lights, this year with a bold Western twist. The hotel’s Altitude Rooftop becomes a glowing, family-friendly playground with thousands of twinkling lights, immersive decor, and the iconic Texas-shaped lazy river illuminated for the holidays. Nightly snowfalls, cozy private igloos, live country music, Santa visits, and holiday movies round out the experience. This event is ticketed, with activities and views designed for both families and adults seeking a festive night out.

Ice @ Discovery Green – Discovery Green
This Houston holiday staple, sponsored by Green Mountain Energy and presented by HAR, offers open-air skating on a bustling rink in the center of downtown. Visitors can expect themed skate nights, chances to skate with Santa, and the debut of a brand-new holiday light display created in partnership with H-Town Frankie of Space City Light Shows. The rink’s festive environment, music, and nearby food options make it a vibrant spot for families, date nights, and friend outings. This is a ticketed experience.

Houston First Peppermint Plaza Bring the fam to Peppermint Plaza.Photo courtesy of Houston First

Photo courtesy of Houston First

Marvel at 19 exquisitely decorated, artist-designed holiday trees at the Alley Theatre.

Peppermint Plaza – Avenida Houston
Peppermint Plaza transforms the Plaza at Avenida Houston and the Grand Window of the George R. Brown Convention Center into a glittering indoor-outdoor holiday scene. Guests can stroll past 18 beautifully decorated Christmas trees on display inside the Grand Window and take family photos at the foot of the spectacular 42-foot outdoor Christmas tree, adorned with nearly 30,000 lights. Every Saturday evening, live musical performances themed around “A World in a City” bring diverse sounds and cultures to the Plaza, adding to the warm, global holiday ambience.

Land of Sweets – Hilton Americas-Houston
Hilton Americas-Houston has crafted one of the most breathtaking indoor holiday displays downtown, featuring more than 80,000 sparkling lights, illuminated branches woven throughout the lobby, and towering 14-foot Champagne trees wrapped in 10,000 mini lights. This year, visitors can also marvel at a special Disneyland Resort 70th-anniversary chocolate installation, a life-size, detailed creation made entirely from chocolate by the hotel’s pastry and operations teams. The grand lobby is open to the public, and guests are invited to stay overnight to make the most of the experience.

Twinkle Town – Trebly Park
Trebly Park becomes a joyful, pet-friendly holiday hot spot perfect for four-legged visitors and their humans. Families can snap photos with their pets in front of a dazzling holiday tree and share a kiss under Texas’ largest mistletoe ball. Activities include free hot chocolate, dog treat bar “puppychinos,” photos with Santa, face painting, paw-print ornaments, and live music. The park also hosts the “Ugly Sweater Holiday Jam” and outdoor movies under the stars.

Getting around

This year’s mantra: park once, then wander. Two designated zones (North and South) make it easy to ditch the car and walk or ride between villages. METRO’s Holiday Express offers decorated Green & Purple Line trains, and free EV “Reindeer Rides” run on Saturday nights through December 31.

For more details — including info on times, parking, prices, purchasing tickets, a map, and related holiday activities — head here.

holidays light displays houston first city lights alley theatre discovery green ice discovery green discovery green ice rink houston astros market square park a christmas carol lynn wyatt square houston theater district astros light up the park marriott marquis houston peppermint plaza land of sweets twinkle town promoted

Movie Review

Onslaught's brutal mix of horror, action, comedy can't find its footing

Photo courtesy of A24

Adria Arjona in Onslaught.

The most important thing for any movie to establish early on is its tone. No matter the genre, a film needs to make its audience understand how they should feel as the story unfolds so that they’re willing to go along with whatever transpires on screen. A film that doesn't do that, such as the new Onslaught, runs the risk of failing to connect with viewers even if it has some interesting or fun elements to offer.

One of the biggest issues for the movie is that it fails to fully invest in its main character, Celeste (Adriana Arjona). She’s a military veteran who now lives in and manages a desert trailer park, which is filled with a motley crew of offbeat people. She also has a contentious relationship with her ex, who unexpectedly drops off their daughter, Daisy (Blake Kennedy), soon after the film begins.

Celeste has a stash of high-powered weapons, showing she hasn’t left her former career fully behind. Her expertise comes in handy when something goes wrong at a nearby military contractor facility run by Hans Kemmler (Dan Stevens), and a trio of super soldiers escapes into the wild. Trained to kill everyone in their path, it’s not long before they set their glowing eyes on the trailer park.

Directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, the film has elements of horror, action, and comedy, but the filmmakers struggle in finding the right combination of the three. Wingard and Barrett divide the film’s focus between the trailer park and the military facility for a long time at the beginning of the film, and the quirkiness of people at the former mixed with the bold weirdness of the people at the latter keep viewers off balance in a bad way.

Once they finally settle into the main part of the story where the super soldiers go on a rampage, the filmmakers overpromise and underdeliver. The showdown between a seemingly unstoppable group and an angry woman and her band of misfits seems destined to be highly entertaining, but comes off as underwhelming. The sequence is filled with brutality with no meaning and heroics that feel more accidental than purposeful.

The ham-fisted way in which the story plays out is disappointing since the film has a bunch of characters who could have been great if used properly. The trauma of Celeste’s military career and personal life are hinted at, but don’t come into play as much as expected. Hans and his wife Hanna (Rebecca Hall) are completely off-the-wall, but their eccentricities seem to be apropos of nothing. The super soldiers are initially intimidating, but the climactic sequence undercuts them significantly.

Arjona has yet to fully break out despite some good roles in Hit Man and the Disney+ show Andor. She makes for a good lead here, embodying the toughness of a military veteran while still being relatable. Stevens and Hall go all in with their bonkers characters, but the story doesn’t serve them well. Comic relief comes in the form of Reginald VelJohnson and Eric Wareheim, and they do a great job in smaller roles.

A movie like Onslaught is typically one where the audience just turns off their brains and enjoys the carnage. But Wingard and Barrett try a little too hard by throwing in oddball characters that don’t add much to the story, forgetting to pay enough attention to the mechanics of the plot in the process.

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Onslaught opens in theaters on September 4.

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