The 12 Days of Christmas

Enjoy elaborately decorated Victorian-style gazebos on display every day during the holiday festival.

The 12 Days of Christmas at Night

The garden is open late for a special lighted nighttime experience with over a million lights! To start the yuletide season, the 12 Days of Christmas at Night features the beloved gazebos. Additionally after Thanksgiving, enjoy our expanded Christmas Village, visits with Santa Claus every night, entertainment, shopping, food & beverage options and more!

Christmas Village

Included with general admission or 12 Days at Night admission.

Inspired by European Christmas Markets, or Christkindlmarket, The Christmas Village is comprised of charming shops and façades representing a quaint European hamlet. In total, 14 delightful shops and façades debuted in 2019 and more will be added this year.

New this year is the handcrafted German-built Christmas pyramid, which measures 23-feet-tall and is decorated with hand-carved elements and beautiful lighted motion on every level. The Christmas Pyramid is the perfect complement to the Christmas Village and is the signature element in Pyramid Square along with three new shops including an Edelweiss Haus with food and drink, a Chocolate Shop and a Toy Shop.  Known for their beautiful handiwork and woodwork, German artisans from the Erzgebirge region (Ore mountains) created the octagon-shaped Christmas Pyramid. Carving each figure by hand, 15 workers spent 2,150 hours to design and build this handmade, one-of-a-kind pyramid. Each of the four levels spins and is illuminated by four candles.

Measuring 16 to 19 feet tall, each house or shop is themed and large enough so that several children and adults can enter at a time and experience that particular business. During the day, children can learn from the portrayals of the shops’ interiors on its muralled walls, have fun and explore these shops as they would a playhouse. At night, The Christmas Village shines with a holiday glow of lights strung throughout the trees and outlining the roof of each shop.

The Christmas Village is a generous donation from Pauline and Austin Neuhoff as a gift to the city and the Dallas Arboretum. The Marilyn and Ben Weber Family Christmas Pyramid is also a generous contribution this season. 

Day 1: Partridge in a Pear Tree

The Pear Tree has gold branches sprinkled with rhinestones, green mirrored leaves, and gold, rhinestone encrusted pears. The partridge sits “center stage,” intricately painted and adorned with rhinestones. The tree revolves with the partridge in it.

Day 2: Two Turtle Doves

The Two Turtle Doves cuddles on an arrow that pierces a heart-shaped cage suspended from the roof of the gazebo. The feather-tailed turtle doves are intricately painted and covered with rhinestones. The outer cage of crystal beading is decorated with fleur de lis banding on top and bottom.

Day 3: Three French Hens

Day three reflects the native countryside of the Three French Hens. White and gold oval French mirrors bolster Victorian perches for the hens, and this base turns. The hens, black-and-white with red accents,sits in gold straw nests.

Day 4: Four Calling Birds

The Four Calling Birds sit on filigreed, jeweled, Victorian hanging bird perches within an inner oval cage made of iridescent bead strands. The calling birds are multi-colored, with feather plumes and long tails.

Day 5: Five Golden Rings

The Five Golden Rings feature a Victorian circus with a ceiling draped in red and white fabric to mimic a circus tent. The center circus ring has a pedestal with oval mirrors on which a white bear wearing a vest and collar balancing a spinning gold ring on his nose. The bear is surrounded by four seals wearing ruffled collars that are seated and balancing spinning bedazzled gold rings on their noses.

Day 6: Six Geese A-Laying

The Six Geese A-Laying is set in a snow-covered forest. Snow-flocked trees of varying sizes sit on a mirrored floor that turns. Snow and rhinestone “rocks” are piled high around the edges of the gazebo. Two geese are sitting on nests, two are standing in their nests to reveal golden eggs, and two are nested in the trees. The geese have feathered and rhinestones heads and necks, and feathered bodies.

Day 7: Seven Swans A-Swimming

The seven swans float in a snowy, ice crystal palace. The gazebo feature a pond with a tiered fountain and frozen water and icicles in the center of a mirror, or “frozen” pond. The swans, six white and one with black feathers with small crowns on their heads, are around the fountain.

Day 8: Eight Maids-A-Milking

This gazebo feature a truly spectacular English barn divided into four wedge-shaped stalls. There are four intricately painted cows and four beautifully costumed maids sitting on stools while milking. Four other maids are carrying pails.

Day 9: Nine Ladies Dancing

Nine Ladies Dancing feature a Victorian ballroom. The ladies are costumed in beautiful Victorian beaded gowns and have elegant period hair styles. All of them move around the gazebo, and four make complete turns.

Day 10: Ten Lords A-Leaping

This gazebo features ten ice-skating lords. The mirrored floor is a frozen pond. The lords are dressed in Victorian outerwear and ice skates, and all will be skating.

Day 11: Eleven Pipers Piping

The pipers are dressed as Scottish bagpipe players in red and green tartan plaid. Each piper plays bagpipes. The ceiling is draped in green and red tartan to match the pipers’ kilts, and a circle of horns adorned with roping and tassels will suspend from the ceiling over the pipe major. The pipers also move in this gazebo.

Day 12: Twelve Drummers Drumming

This gazebo is a spectacular choice to the exhibit. The drummers are dressed in white pants with red and gold piping, red jackets and red hats with gold trim. They move in concentric circles, with one set moving clockwise and another set moving counterclockwise.