The Picayune Magazine’s 2026 Christmas Lights Guide is out now
The 2026 Christmas Lights Guide is free and out now across the Highland Lakes. Staff photo by Caden Senn
Plan out some festive entertainment with The Picayune Magazine’s 2026 Christmas Lights Guide, which is free and full of fabulous holiday fun. The guide is now available at businesses in Burnet and Llano counties. Or, pick up a copy at the Victory Media office, 6000 U.S. 281 North in Marble Falls.
The guide features dates and locations for local lights displays in Burnet, Marble Falls, Granite Shoals, Llano, and Johnson City.
Fill up your calendar with Christmas parade dates using the guide, which has start times for each. Lighted parades are Nov. 28 in Johnson City, Dec. 4 in Marble Falls, and Dec. 5 in Llano. Marble Falls holds a lighted boat parade on Dec. 12. Daytime parades are scheduled during Bertram’s Country Christmas on Dec. 5 and Burnet’s Christmas on the Square on Dec. 12.
Those looking for musical entertainment can find the time and place to see the Burnet High School Highlandettes drill team perform “The Story of the Nutcracker” and the Hill Country Community Theatre’s production of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”—and more!
Find out about the Historic Homes Tour, a fundraiser for The Falls on the Colorado Museum in Marble Falls, as well as Llano’s Dickens of Christmas in Llano and Burnet’s Christmas at Old Fort Croghan and Main Street Bethlehem.
The 2026 Christmas Lights Guide will lead you to lights displays, tree lightings, and LBJ National Park tours in Johnson City.
It also has two how-to articles for crafty readers, including a peppermint serving plate that’s as edible as the goodies on it, and luminarias for an old-fashioned way to light up the night. Once you’ve learned to make a serving plate from peppermints, you’ll need to bake some cookies to put on it. The Picayune Magazine, with permission, is reprinting the recipes on the following pages to help you get started. They were first published in local cookbooks and are from local home bakers.
To stay in a how-the-cookie-crumbles mood when you start mailing holiday cards and gifts, check out the latest U.S. Postal Service stamp designs on page 36. They are all about the decorated Christmas cookie.
Whether or not you ice your cookies, the local recipes on pages 34-35 will certainly please the family and Santa Claus, the most famous consumer of Christmas cookies.