This Town in Iowa Looks Straight Out of a Hallmark Christmas Movie

Sometimes, the best thing about Christmas is the nostalgia that comes from visiting the same places year after year. That’s the beauty of living in a small state like Iowa: You can loop around and around until you find your favorite spots that feel like home. But every so often, novelty beckons and you find yourself looking for something new. That’s what happened to me last year, so I took my family to a charming small town in Iowa, a little farther afield from our usual turf.

I set my sights on Osky, a town we once knew very well a decade or so ago. Officially known as Oskaloosa, it’s an hour southeast of Des Moines, and almost exactly halfway between Pella and Ottumwa. The historic downtown has hosted a lighted Christmas parade for nearly as long as I’ve been alive, but in recent years, they’ve really upped the jingle factor. For several consecutive holiday seasons, I’ve seen it touted as the best Christmas light display in Iowa. 

The last time we were here, my kids were just infants, riding in car seats, as my husband towed a float for our family business through this very parade. I have core memories of that night, watching their tiny, gloved hands and chilled, rosy cheeks wave at the crowds through open windows. They’re a little older now, both in the double digits, and one is a teen. And this time, we’re the spectators. If you’re a teen parent, you know that attempting something like this is very brave, as it’s doubtful for a teen to be enchanted with the same thing they were as toddlers. But on the night of their annual lighted parade, Oskaloosa can deliver a true Christmas miracle.

Oskaloosa’s lighted parade happens the weekend after Thanksgiving; this year, it falls on December 6, 2025. Each year, a parade theme accompanies the one million Christmas lights that blanket this charming small town in Iowa. For 2025, the theme is ‘Holiday Joys and Toys,” which complements “Painting with Lights,” the ongoing name given to the curtains of lights that cover every building on the historic downtown square.

We arrived before sunset, opting to avoid the parking hassles later on, grabbed some comforting Irish grub at Bridget’s Public House, just a few steps off the town square, petted a reindeer in the park, and hopped on a horse-drawn carriage just in time for the twinkles to spread across Oskaloosa. In that moment, my utter awe was reflected in the pupils of my kids’ eyes, igniting a moment of childlike wonder and total enchantment. Cliche or not, Oskaloosa in December mimics the set of a Hallmark Christmas Movie.

The next several hours were spent bumping shoulders with the growing crowds, sipping cocoa and cider, and wandering alongside towering walls of lights that reached from the ground to the clouds. When the sky turned sufficiently inky, we huddled on the sidewalks with the masses, decked out in blinking reindeer headbands and big Santa hats, to watch the lighted parade arrive downtown. 

With each passing float, musical troupe, and giant, lit lanterns, a new core memory was etched on our hearts. A new-but-old Christmas memory worthy of repeating for every season in the future.

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