Where to See the Best Christmas Lights Displays in Fresno and Clovis

Thanksgiving Day is just past so that means it's time to check around to make sure to have time to go see all the displays of holiday lights throughout the area. Remember, most of them stop lighting every night once Christmas Day is over. As for me, my lights go on nightly through "Little Christmas" which is January 6th of the following year. One of my friends and I always plan an evening when we can go to a few of these places. Halfway through we stop a convenient Starbucks for a hot drink and we drive to far more places than those listed below.

Here are the "formal" place to go enjoy the lights at -

I'm not sure which is the oldest but both Christmas Tree Lane and Huntington Boulevard are two of my favorite spots. These are Fresno's oldest two neighborhoods and they feature large homes with big front yards on a wide street. The neighborhood Christmas Tree Lane is in is known as Old Fig Garden. Huntington Boulevard even has a wide lawn area in the middle between the traffic lanes.

Christmas Tree Lane opens at dusk daily through Christmas Day and you start near Shields heading north on Van Ness Avenue. There is no charge but Santa Claus does take donations at the far side of the lane near Fig Garden Village. The lane will be closed to car traffic this year on Tuesday, Dec. 12th because it's open only for walkers on that night. Unless you want to walk both ways, be sure to park a car near the end so you can drive back to where you left the other car. Thank God for my friend Betty G. She has an annual Christmas party on the night the walkers take over Christmas Tree Lane - she lives only two blocks off of Van Ness Avenue which is perfect for avoiding the traffic crush. She gives a great party for over 100 people and even hires vans to bring people back to her home after they've walked the lane.

Huntington Boulevard is wonderful to walk and it's shorter than Christmas Tree Lane. It has beautiful old houses on a very wide avenue all decked out with Christmas lights. They also have one very old, tall tree in someone's front yard with lights. The last time I was there, they were selling calendars to raise money to keep maintaining all the decorations and lights. This is just a wonderful, old-fashioned place to visit.

Clovis has two places - I can't recall the name of the one off of Sunnyside Avenue but it's near Barstow and you turn east from Sunnyside into the neighborhood. They even change the street signs to holiday names. You don't usually see anyone walking this area and it's really about six to eight streets that criss cross each other with fancy lights and displays. It's fast and fun - I used to go through it almost every night when I lived nearby. It also opens at dusk but it sometimes better to go a little later so more of the homeowners are home with their lights/displays turned on.

Then, there is a new place in Clovis-it might even be northeast Fresno. It doesn't have a name that I know of but it's great. I've gone for the past three years and it gets bigger every year. It's a fairly new neighborhood near Peach and Alluvial. Almost every house has wonderful decorations, each trying to outdo the next. Sometimes there are groups caroling and you'll see some people walking. Again, it's not a single street but an entire neighborhood all dressed up in its best holiday finery.

Then, there are a few other places to go visit also. There is a gated community called Quail Lake on Shaw just east of McCall. Many of these homes are on the water (at either the lake or the cove areas) and many of the back yards that face the lake are beautifully decorated. Some have trains...others have neon plam trees... The decorations are reflected off of the water and look twice as pretty. Homes are still being built there so every year there are more and more decorations going up. Enter off of Shaw and you can drive around the lake, going into the specific neighborhoods to see more decorated homes, and coming back out - the road makes a complete circle around the lake.

I think the community at Woodward Lake probably has similar types of decorated homes. This is a place I'll have to check out this year.

Then, if you're in northeast Fresno, the large homes north of Herndon for a mile or two, and between Clovis and McCall Avenues have some terrific decorations. Nothing formal, but lots of beautifully decorated homes. The DiCicco home is out there but I don't know exactly where - it's spectacular.

So, grab your family, fill up a thermos of hot chocolate and/or cider, take some cookies and make a night of it.

Merry Christmas!