Over 1 MILLION Christmas Lights 🎄

I'd driven past the Water World parking lot on Pecos more times than I can count, but pulling in during December with a million Christmas lights synced to music playing through my car stereo was a different experience entirely. Christmas in Color has been running in Colorado for a few years now, and this season they've got multiple locations — Denver, Aurora, and Red Rocks down in Morrison. I went to the Federal Heights spot to see what we were working with.

The Setup

You tune your car radio to a specific station once you're inside, and from there the lights are synced to the music. That part works better than I expected. There's something about driving slowly through a massive light display while the soundtrack matches what's happening around you that makes it feel less like a parking lot and more like an actual production. The scale is real — a million lights is not a number they're fudging. It's a lot of lights.

The experience runs about 25 to 30 minutes once you're actually moving through. Getting in is a different story. Timing matters here. We went a few weeks before Christmas specifically to avoid the backup that builds closer to the holiday, and even then there was a wait to get in. If you're thinking about going Christmas Eve or the weekend right before, mentally prepare for that traffic to be significant. Going earlier in December is the smarter move.

Who It's Really For

This one is squarely aimed at families with younger kids, and I think it's worth being clear about that. My wife and I had a fine time, but the design of it — driving through, staying in the car, music on the radio — is built around the experience of kids watching from the back seat with their faces lit up. That's not a knock on it. It's just accurate.

If you're looking for something more adult-friendly, the Blossoms of Light at Denver Botanic Gardens is a different kind of experience — you're walking through, it's quieter, and the setting does more of the work. Christmas in Color is bigger and louder, which is the point, but they're solving for different things.

For the record, Elitch Gardens runs Luminova Holidays with over four million lights if you want to go bigger and add rides into the mix. And Red Rocks is hosting a Christmas in Color location of their own this year, which honestly might be the most interesting version of this — driving through the Lower South Parking Lots at Red Rocks with the amphitheater in the background sounds like a pretty good reason to make the trip to Morrison.

What Surprised Me

The sync between the lights and the music is more polished than I anticipated. I went in expecting the rough version of this — a few light tunnels, some blinking trees, nothing that cohesive. What's actually there is more coordinated. Sequences are timed. There are moments that genuinely land. It's not a sophisticated night out, but it does what it sets out to do.

The Water World location on N Pecos in Federal Heights is easy enough to get to, and parking is obviously not the issue when the whole thing is a drive-through. The wait to enter is the main friction point. Weeknights earlier in the month are your best window.

The Bottom Line

Christmas in Color is worth doing if you have kids or you're looking for something easy and festive that doesn't require getting out of your car in 20-degree weather. It's a legitimate production — the light count isn't marketing math, and the music sync is a real part of what makes it work. If you're going without kids and expecting something more atmospheric, it might not hit the same way. But for what it is, it delivers.