Christmas in June: SDC begins installing millions of lights

Summer Celebration is in full swing at Silver Dollar City, but behind the scenes, it’s Christmas in June at the popular theme park! On Monday morning, June 23, Santa and the Giant Candy Cane made a special visit to the City to help start the process of lighting the City for An Old Time Christmas 2025, by helping hang the first Christmas lights of the season! 

Public Relations Manager Brandei Clifton shared that it takes the Christmas lighting team an entire four months to hang the millions of lights that help make Silver Dollar City one of the country’s most popular Christmas destinations, with the kick-off of An Old Time Christmas scheduled for November 1. This year’s start on lighting was a couple of weeks earlier than usual, due to a few extra operating days added to the City’s calendar and just in case this year’s trend toward heavier-than-usual rainfall continues, said Jessica Loftis, who along with foreman Justin Eakin leads a crew of 12 in the massive lighting project. New for 2025, The Plaza will be aglow with lights and its own tree, as well. 

The team appreciated Santa and the Candy Cane dropping by to help hang some lights last Monday! Who knew—Santa works all year, not just on Christmas Eve! It was also evident there is a huge amount of behind-the-scenes support work involved for Loftis and her crew—keeping records of lights purchased and where they are used, with an intentional strategy for rotation and replacement. There are daily audits, attention to safety, and upkeep during the Christmas season—and the storage! Anyone who loves Christmas but dreads wrestling with tubs of tangled lights can only imagine doing so for over 6 and a half million lights! That problem led to custom spools and shelving designed by Eakin, who also helped save many hours of employee time and trouble by creating a custom cart for transporting spools of lights to their intended location.  

Hanging that amount of lights requires over 880,000 staples, said Loftis. This writer’s wrist hurt just from thinking about squeezing the staple gun that many times! But even after weeks of work covering Silver Dollar City with lights, stapling them carefully into place six inches at a time, staff members shared that the crew members get emotional every year when they see the beauty resulting from their hard work, as the entire City lights up for the first time. 

Along with Santa and Candy Cane, the Christmas Crew hope you enjoy your remaining summer and fall visits to Silver Dollar City, and invite you to make plans now to join them for Christmas 2025!