The Holiday Trail of Lights is a festival held in Northwest Louisiana during the Christmas season.
Six North Louisiana cities participate in the Trail: Natchitoches (pronounced NAK-uh-tush), Shreveport, Bossier City, Minden, Monroe-West Monroe, Alexandria-Pineville.
The Natchitoches Christmas Festival, also called the "Festival of Lights," in Natchitoches was started in 1927, making it one of the oldest Light Festivals in the US. In the largest city, Shreveport, the offerings include a choreographed laser light show in the Barnwell Garden and Art Center, "Christmas in Roseland" at the American Rose Center, and a weekly fireworks extravaganza. Candlelight tours of historic homes are popular attractions in all of the cities. In Natchitoches, Louisiana it is known as the Natchitoches Christmas Festival or Festival of lights.
All of the cities are within a one hour drive of each other and hold parades during the festival and offer what the official website calls "Southern hospitality".
Famous quotes containing the words holiday, trail and/or lights:
“You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Billboards, billboards, drink this, eat that, use all manner of things, everyone, the best, the cheapest, the purest and most satisfying of all their available counterparts. Red lights flicker on every horizon, airplanes beware; cars flash by, more lights. Workers repair the gas main. Signs, signs, lights, lights, streets, streets.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)