Austin's 37th Street Lights Sparked Up For The Holidays

AUSTIN, TX — If you've yet to catch the holiday spirit, you might want to take a stroll along 37th Street off Guadalupe Avenue for one of the city's longest-running and most beloved holiday traditions.

We're talking the 37th Street Lights, which doubles as both holiday event and quintessentially weird Austin occurrence. The neighborhood illuminating is back for the second year after a hiatus of several years that thankfully faded to the past last year, with sparkly lights from 507-301 W. 37th St.

Equal parts cheerful, quirky and eccentric, the light displays were sparked in the mid-1980s when a resident lamented that only a handful of people strung up lights to mark the Christmas season. The resident knocked on his neighbors' doors asking them to help light up the block and a tradition was born.

As barometer of the event's renown, the 37th Street Lights have their own Wikipedia page. Organizers even built a website alerting to their lighted displays, describing the thing as "The weirdest lights you will see this holiday season."

Patch took a stroll along the block on Friday evening after dinner with friends. Patch then returned home suffused with a warm feeling of holiday cheer accompanied with a need to alert others to the experience.

Stop on by, and say hi to 37th Street denizens hanging out on their porches as they welcome visitors. Happy holidays!