Phoenix celebrates the holidays in the Sonoran Desert, with mild temperatures that put most installations outdoors, a strong Mexican-American cultural presence that shapes the season's character, and a regional luminaria tradition that uses paper bags and candles to light walkways across the city. The desert backdrop produces holiday scenes found nowhere else in the country.

• Las Noches de las Luminarias: The Desert Botanical Garden lines its trails with 8,000 hand-lit luminarias each night, the Southwest's longest-running luminaria event.
• ZooLights at the Phoenix Zoo: The Papago Park zoo runs a major after-dark holiday lighting program, one of the largest of any American zoo.
• Glendale Glitters: The neighboring city of Glendale lights 1.6 million bulbs across its historic downtown, one of the largest free walkable light displays in the West.
• Sonoran Holiday Tables: Phoenix's Mexican-American holiday tables feature pozole on Christmas Eve, green-corn tamales, and Sonoran hot dogs (the bacon-wrapped Tucson invention now ubiquitous statewide), with carne asada cookouts as the warm-weather alternative to indoor Christmas dinners.