This week's hot headlines

Wild party house for sale tops this week's 5 hottest Fort Worth headlines

The heated indoor pool has a slide and a diving board.

Photo courtesy of Dave Perry Miller Real Estate

Editor's note: A lot happened this week, so here's your chance to get caught up. Read on for the week's most popular headlines. Looking for the best things to do this weekend? Find that list here. For the best Christmas lights, go here.

1. Ultimate party house with indoor pool hits market for $745,000 in Fort Worth. A seemingly inconspicuous home in east Fort Worth shows that you never really know what kind of wild-and-crazy stuff is going on inside a house - and not to judge a building by its exterior. The four-bedroom, five-bathroom house at 1809 Carl St., four miles east of downtown Fort Worth, recently hit the market for $745,000, and a peek at the interior photos shows why it's attracted lots of attention on the Zillow Gone Wild Facebook page and Twitter account.

2. These are the 13 can't-miss shows in Dallas-Fort Worth theater for December. This is the best time of the year to go see a show. There are so many family-friendly offerings just begging to become traditions, and lots of new interpretations of holiday classics. Plus, there are always one or two non-holiday themes shows, if you need a break from all the tinsel and holly. Here are 13 local shows to watch this month.

3. Italian osteria to open in downtown Fort Worth from top restaurant team. One of Fort Worth's most acclaimed restaurant teams has something Italian in the works: Called 61 Osteria, it's the new upscale Italian concept from restaurateur Adam Jones and award-winning chef Blaine Staniford, and it'll open in downtown Fort Worth in early 2023.

4. Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 10 restaurants to take holiday guests. It’s hard to please every guest in town for the holidays, but we’re going to try. As part of our annual tradition, for our December Where to Eat, we are pointing you in the direction of the best restaurants to take your holiday visitors, finicky or not, and show them the best Fort Worth has to offer.

5. Best Fort Worth restaurants for Christmas 2022 dining in or to-go. Christmas is really a two-day dining extravaganza, with celebratory meals served from Christmas Eve through Christmas night. This list compiles restaurants serving Christmas Eve and Christmas Day brunches and dinners, along with some to-go options for at-home celebrations.

where-to-eat holidays lists theater home-for-sale openings hot-headlines

Holiday News

All the Christmas trees in Dallas-Fort Worth, ranked by size

Photo courtesy of Galleria Dallas

Galleria Dallas and its very big Xmas tree.

Holiday 2024 is shaping up to be the most festive ever in Dallas-Fort Worth, and we have a new benchmark: The Christmas tree. Cities and malls across Dallas-Fort Worth are raising and lighting their community Christmas tree with a new imperative: Whose is biggest?

With everyone vying to be DFW's version of Rockefeller Center in New York (which this year comes in at 74 feet tall), we thought it was time to take a measuring stick.

Here is our roundup of lighted Christmas trees in DFW in order from tallest to shortest:

Galleria Dallas

The North Dallas mall purports to have the tallest indoor Christmas tree in Texas. ("Everyone from USA Today to Martha Stewart has declared it so," says a Galleria spokesperson.) Installed in the center of their trademark ice rink, it's a 95-foot-tall beauty with 700 branches, hand-sewn twigs, thousands of ball ornaments, and a 10-foot LED star topper that weighs 100 pounds — all told, it takes nearly 50 people and five days to erect. Best of all, the tree is synthetic — so much better than killing a real tree.) They'll do a tree lighting on November 29 and 30.

Sundance Square, Fort Worth

Coming in at second tallest is the 82-foot-tall Norway Spruce at Fort Worth's Sundance Square. It's the largest live tree in Texas and made its grand arrival from Cadillac, Michigan to Sundance Square Plaza on November 25. It's 8 feet taller than this year's Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center in New York City so you know Fort Worth is going for bragging rights. There will be a tree lighting from 6-7 pm on December 3.

Peace Plaza,Main Station in Grapevine

Grapevine, the Christmas Capital of Texas, has a sizable entry at 60 feet. It's right next to the outdoor skating rink on the plaza lawn. There wasn't a ceremonious lighting of the tree this year in favor of a street lighting for the Parade of Lights. However, the lights will be on twinkling each night.

Kaleidoscope Park, Frisco

Newly opened Frisco park has put up its first-ever Christmas tree, featuring a 50-foot tree decorated with 42,000 twinkling lights synchronized to festive music. The tree was first lit by Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney on November 22. The tree is located on the park's Activity Lawn.

Klyde Warren Park, Dallas

Downtown Dallas park will host the lighting of the Mayor’s Christmas Tree, a 50-foot-tall, 5,000-pound tree with nearly 40,000 LED lights. They'll host a tree-lighting celebration on December 7 at 6 ;pm, with festivities and music, including a Nutcracker performance and music from the Emerald City Band.

Allen Premium Outlets Mall, Allen

Allen has an admirable entry for an outlet mall: a 38-foot synthetic tree wrapped in 2,000 lights. Extra points for the synthetic. The lights first went up on November 21. Find the tree in the central court, right behind the Allen Premium Outlets sign.

Addison Circle, Addison

As part of Addison's Rockin' Around the Circle holiday activities, the town has set up a 32-foot tall tree, perched on top of a six-foot base, coming in at approximately three stories high. For an added touch, lights on the tree are even synchronized to Christmas music.

Hotel Drover, Fort Worth

The Stockyards hotel has installed a 30-foot Christmas tree located in The Backyard. They'll host a tree lighting on November 29, but only open to guests who stay overnight.

City of Carrollton, Carrollton

Carrollton has a 20-foot-tall tree located on the historic downtown square and they are doing up their tree lighting on December 7 with great fanfare, including photos with Santa, toy soldier stilt walkers, face painting, photo booth, and a 175-foot drone show to accompany the tree lighting. It starts at 7 pm.

Grand Prairie Premium Outlets, Grand Prairie

The outlet mall has a 20-foot-tall synthetic Christmas tree which they installed on November 22.

BONUS: Vitruvian Park, Addison

This isn't a singular tree lighting, but the park's 455 trees are wrapped in over 1.2 million sparkling LED lights as part of a tree lighting display on November 30. Additionally, there will be free Santa photos, letters to Santa, a live reindeer, classic holiday characters, an elf ballon artist, food trucks, and vendors.

holidays