Annual Christmas Light Festival is brightening Frisco Village until December 15

The annual Christmas Light Festival at the Frisco Woods Campground is underway, and the drive-through or walk-through celebration of lights will be available for sightseers until Friday, December 15.

The nightly event, which officially began on Dec. 3, is a self-guided tour of thousands of Christmas lights and displays that range from skeletal holiday pirates to familiar characters from A Christmas Story, Charlie Brown, and more.

The tour is available from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m., and attendees can pick up a map of the expansive light displays at the main campground office. The cost is a $5 donation per car or group, and all proceeds go towards the construction of a new Frisco-Buxton pathway.

The pathway project has been years in the making, and the endeavor got a boost in the fall of 2023 when a privately funded portion of the pathway began construction. This initial section is 1,400 feet long, (or approximately .27 miles), and runs from the edge of Frisco Woods Campground to the Little Grove United Methodist Church near Piney Ridge Road in Frisco.

The Hatteras Island community got its first look at the proposed Frisco-Buxton pathway at a 2019 open house, which provided detailed plans of a 7.6-mile pathway for pedestrians and cyclists. The pathway will run parallel to N.C. Highway 12, and hopefully, will eventually extend from the Valero Gas Station in Buxton to the Frisco Bathhouse Beach Access south of Frisco’s borders.

The pathway project is spearheaded by the Frisco-Buxton Pathway Committee and the Outer Banks National Scenic Byway Committee for Dare County, which was instrumental in creating similar pathways in the island’s five other villages: Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, and Hatteras.

Currently, Buxton and Frisco are the only two villages on Hatteras Island that do not have a village-wide pathway, and Committee members are hoping to eventually raise the funds to complete the full 7.6-mile pathway within the next several years.

The Christmas Light Festival is one of many events hosted by the campground and the Frisco-Buxton Pathway Committee to raise donations for this ongoing project.

More information on the event can be found online at the Frisco Woods Campground’s Facebook page, and the community at large is encouraged to come out to the nightly festival to catch one of the biggest and brightest displays on Hatteras Island.