Best Neighborhood For Holiday Lights: Olympic Manor
By Seattle Mag November 10, 2025
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2025 issue of Seattle magazine.
When the December dark settles in, there’s nothing more cheer-inducing than bundling up, grabbing a hot chocolate, and going to look at holiday lights. Bright colors, flashing patterns, giant inflatable cartoon characters—decorations seem to get more and more over-the-top each year. This sentiment rings especially true in Olympic Manor, the neighborhood just north of Ballard, where a majority of the houses decorate, and many of them embrace an extravagant approach. Head to this normally quiet community any night in December, and you’re likely to end up in a line of cars snaking through the streets, with passengers pointing and exclaiming at every mid-century house decked out as though the entire neighborhood hired Clark Griswold to install the holiday cheer.
Bonus: Each year, a house nearby, at the 9000 block of Loyal Ave NW, is decked out with Pacific Northwest Ballet’s old Maurice Sendak-designed Nutcracker stage props, including the 15-foot-tall, 700-pound titular soldier.
24th avenue to 20th avenue, Seattle | Nov. 28-Jan. 3, 2026 | olympicmanor.org
About Best of the Best
Everyone loves a winner. And when it comes to Seattle favorites, there’s no shortage of opinions on which places, spaces, and bites deserve top honors. This year, we did things a little differently—our staff weighed in, debating and voting to determine the best of the best across the city. We also ran our annual Readers’ Choice poll for comparison (and yes, there was overlap in just one category). Here’s to celebrating all the winners, no matter who cast the vote.
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