Forest Hills, Tennessee is a small city of homes and trees between Granny White Pike and Chickering Road, with Belle Meade on its western edge. Forest Hills holidays here mean the shows and parades just past the city line. This guide gathers the 2026 dates the organizers have posted, notes the ones still waiting on a date, and ends with a few words on lighting a house on a sloped, wooded lot. Confirm with each organizer before you go.
Cheekwood Holiday LIGHTS, opening November 20
- Date:
- Friday, November 20, 2026 to Sunday, January 3, 2027
- Time:
- 4:30 to 10:00 pm
- Place:
- Cheekwood
Cheekwood is the big one for Forest Hills families. Holiday LIGHTS opens Friday, November 20, 2026 and runs through Sunday, January 3, 2027, from 4:30 to 10:00 pm. Cheekwood's 2026 description promises more than a million lights on a garden route about a mile long, with pieces such as the Pixel Pine and the Star Field.
Belle Meade Holiday Parade, Saturday, December 5
- Date:
- Saturday, December 5, 2026
- Time:
- 1:00 pm
Next door, the City of Belle Meade will step off its 2026 Holiday Parade at 1:00 pm on Saturday, December 5. The 2026 route is not yet announced, so check the city's site for the map before you choose a place to stand.
Brentwood Christmas Tree Lighting, Monday, December 7
- Date:
- Monday, December 7, 2026
- Time:
- 5:30 to 6:00 pm
- Place:
- Brentwood public library, Concord Road
Just south, Brentwood lights its city tree outside its public library on Concord Road on Monday, December 7, 2026. The lighting is set for 5:30 pm and wraps up by 6:00. The lighting itself is short, so plan to arrive a little early. The Brentwood holiday lights guide has more on that evening.
Lighting of the Green at Lipscomb: 2026 date not yet announced
Lipscomb University's Lighting of the Green is a free holiday concert capped by lighting a Christmas tree. Lipscomb has not posted a 2026 date yet. Watch the university's Lighting of the Green page for the date and time.
Glow Wild at the Nashville Zoo, November 13 to January 3
- Date:
- November 13, 2026 to January 3, 2027
- Time:
- 5 to 9 pm nightly
- Place:
- Nashville Zoo
At the Nashville Zoo, Glow Wild opens November 13, 2026 and stays open each evening until January 3, 2027, with hours of 5 to 9 pm. Santa visits each night between November 27 and December 24.
Where to drive for lights near Forest Hills
City Cast Nashville's neighborhood lights guide, posted in December 2025, points to two nearby streets: Belle Meade Boulevard and Lynnwood Boulevard, both a few minutes west. The same guide sends drivers south to Brentwood's Princeton Hills, Fountainhead and McGavock Farms. Displays change every year, so take last season's list as a place to start.
Inside Forest Hills, the roads climb and curve, and many houses sit well above or below the pavement. If you drive through, go slowly, use low beams, and pull fully off the road before you stop.
For every tree lighting, parade and light show in the region, see the Nashville-area holiday lights calendar.
Lighting a home on a wooded hillside
Forest Hills incorporated on December 1, 1957 and is still its own city, with its own rules for trees. Those tree rules ban clear cutting and set a minimum tree canopy for residential lots, so the trees around a Forest Hills home are meant to stay put.
That shapes the lighting plan. A roofline system fastens to the eave of the house, not to the branches around it, so nothing has to be cut back or wrapped. On a lot that falls away from the road, the lower edge of the roof carries most of the light. On a lot that rises above it, the peaks and gables matter more. Either way, a continuous line along the eave reads clearly through bare winter branches. Lighting the trees themselves is a separate job, covered in roofline vs landscape lighting.
Permanent roofline lighting for Forest Hills homes
Our installers put in permanent LED roofline lighting that sits in a track under the eave all year and runs from an app. In December you pick red and green for Christmas. The rest of the year you can choose another preset, with no ladder work on a slope and nothing tangled in the branches come January.
At 6 to 12 hours a day, the system works out to about 10 to 20 years. Most homes take 8 to 10 hours to install, and coverage is the manufacturer's 5-year product warranty and our installers' workmanship warranty.
See the Forest Hills permanent lighting page for more. Ready to get started? Send the quote form. After you do, an installer will call you.