Galleria Dallas kicked off construction Sunday on what the mall is billing as the nation's tallest indoor Christmas tree, a 95-foot structure that will take nearly 50 workers five days to assemble inside the shopping center. The build began Nov. 1 and is scheduled to wrap up Nov. 5, setting the stage for a holiday season packed with free light shows, ice-skating performances and a new photo experience at center court.
A Five-Ton Frame And Thousands Of Branches
The tree starts with a five-ton steel frame, onto which crews attach more than 850 branches, according to CW33. Producing those branches alone required more than 14,000 shop hours, the outlet reports. Capping the structure is a 100-pound, 10-foot LED star, described by Focus Daily News as the first of its kind in the United States.
Standing at 95 feet, the tree is tall enough to earn the tallest-indoor-tree title nationally, according to Fox 4 News. Galleria Dallas itself promotes the tree the same way on its holiday page, calling it the nation's tallest indoor Christmas tree.
Conflicting Counts On Lights And Ornaments
Exactly how many lights wrap the tree depends on which account you read. CW33 reports 215,000 programmable LED lights supplied by the Italian lighting firm Twinkly, a number that matches what Focus Daily News also lists for the tree's programmable LEDs. But Fox 4 News puts the figure at 450,000 lights with 10,000 ornaments, while a separate report from Localprofile describes 850 branches, more than 15,000 ball ornaments and 24 oversized starburst ornaments alongside 215,000 points of light. The discrepancy extends further back: a prior ABC13 report on the tree described it as holding nearly 500,000 LED lights. None of the outlets reconcile the differing totals.
What is consistent across the reporting is the kind of show those lights can produce. The lights display animations of reindeer, Santa Claus, floating candy canes and gifts, per CW33's report on the build. That animated capability traces back to a 2023 redesign that introduced the ability to play animated light shows, according to CultureMap Dallas, which at the time also noted the tree stood in the middle of the mall's ice rink.
Daily Light Shows And Grand Tree Lightings
Starting Nov. 27, the shopping center plans to run its Illumination Celebration light shows daily at noon, 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., with sequences synchronized to music and mirrored on two 36-foot trees on Level One, the CW33 report states. Free Grand Tree Lightings are scheduled for noon on Black Friday, Nov. 27, Saturday, Nov. 28, and Saturday, Dec. 5, per that same account. A separate listing from Localprofile gives different return dates for the repeat celebration, citing noon Saturday, Nov. 28, and Saturday, Dec. 6 — a discrepancy the available reporting does not resolve.
Those lighting events come with entertainment built in. The free shows feature ice-skating performances by Olympic skaters, students from the Galleria Dallas Ice Skating Center, and a character called Missile Toes — a backflipping Santa who shoots fireworks from his skates, as CW33 describes him. Beyond the tree-lighting dates, more than 60 local groups are scheduled to perform holiday favorites throughout the center, according to Galleria Dallas's own events listing.
A First-Time Photo Experience At Center Court
New this year, Galleria Dallas is offering what Focus Daily News describes as its first official tree photo experience, with sessions set up at center court in front of the tree. The sessions run from Nov. 13 through Jan. 3, cost $10 for up to three poses and six guests, and photos are sent digitally, with prints available for $5 apiece, per that report. Guests are also encouraged to bundle the pre-booked sessions with Santaland and Snowday tickets.
The tree itself is expected to remain on display through Jan. 4, 2027, according to CW33's reporting. The holiday push extends well past the mall's doors — CW33 notes that 30 trees along the Dallas North Tollway are decorated with 100,000 red LED lights, part of a broader seasonal footprint that has grown since the tree's animated redesign debuted in 2023.
