It’s that time of year. The air has a chilled feeling to it, everyone is out shopping and the Natchitoches Christmas Festival is going on. Instead of joining the bustling crowd downtown, some people enjoy Christmas elsewhere. At a place along University Parkway, people smile and sip their hot cocoa, mesmerized by the twinkling, dazzling Christmas lights surrounding them. Carefree of whatever notifications their phone has, the only thing they’re thinking about is the nice time they’re having with loved ones.
With over 300,000 Christmas lights, Dark Woods Christmas is an immersive experience filled with entertainment, a variety of sweet treats, food, photo opportunities and more. It is one of the special events Dark Woods Adventure Park has.
The owners, Jason Summerlin and Mardy Summerlin, first came up with the concept of Dark Woods Adventure Park 11 years ago. Currently, this family-owned adventure park includes Dark Woods Outfitters, Dark Woods Lost Treasure Mining Company, Dark Woods Haunted Attraction and Dark Woods Christmas. The Dark Woods Haunted Attraction is where it all began, as Jason Summerlin had over 20 years in the haunt industry after working at haunted houses with his dad from a young age.
When they came up with this idea, Mardy Summerlin said, “‘well, if you get haunt, I get Christmas because that’s one of my favorites.’”
Jason Summerlin immediately started thinking about how to make this happen for Mardy Summerlin. When Mardy asks, he always delivers. “He does that for me a lot,” she said.
Jason Summerlin and Mardy Summerlin got married in 2012. They first met in Natchitoches, Louisiana while doing a project for the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches.
“That’s where we first met,” Mardy Summerlin said. “27 years ago … Isn’t that crazy?”
While some people feel it’s best to never work with a spouse, the Summerlins disagree. “We like it; we like being together every day. It works for us,” Mardy Summerlin shared.
This 2024 season will mark the 10th anniversary of Dark Woods Christmas season. When the couple first began building out, they wanted a Christmas attraction but couldn’t afford it all at once.
“We went into a store that was selling Christmas, and all of their stuff was 90% off. It was tens of thousands of dollars worth of stuff, and I just looked at Jason. He said, ‘just get it and we can start,’” Mardy Summerlin recalled. “Everybody was shopping, and I just got a manager and I said, ‘stop, we’ll take everything.’”
The Summerlins were given the perfect opportunity to open the park for Christmas, so that’s exactly what they did. What started as a small, walk-through Christmas program has turned into an entire event with numerous attractions.
When people first walk in, they’re surrounded by Christmas lights. Not only are there lights at the entrance, but they are present throughout the park. There’s a 128-foot-long bridge that leads to the back of the park, and lights are all around it. The trails within the woods even have lights.
The Christmas lights alone make the event so captivating, but the food, drinks and treats accentuate the holiday spirit feel.
“The donuts and the hot chocolates are so pretty that, the second you bring them out, people are like, ‘oh my gosh,’” Mardy Summerlin said. “We make all our food Instagram worthy.”
Located in the park, Molly Moo’s Soft Serve and Sweets has treats such as Dippin’ Dots, Dole Whip pineapple soft-serve and the soft-serve Dark Woods Shiver, which is customizable with toppings and can be paired with a Coca-Cola drink product.
This year, they are opening a brand new cafe called Black Cat Cafe.
“Black Cat Cafe is a completely new building — big counter service,” Jason Summerlin said.
Black Cat Cafe will serve food such as miniature donuts, pizza, meat pies and more.
The park also offers gourmet hot chocolate with a range of different flavors: triple chocolate, s’mores, The Grinch, peppermint, salted caramel and gingerbread.
There are s’mores-making kits for sale, so families can sit by the fire pits, indulge in the sweet treat, warm up and sing Christmas carols. They can even sing along with the Mistletones, singing Christmas trees located in the park.
Other attractions include the opportunity to meet and take holiday photos with Santa, Mrs. Claus, elves and other characters, snow machines and The Bear Factory at Dark Woods.
The Bear Factory at Dark Woods has over 25 bears and buddies to choose from, and they are all made out of recycled plastic materials. For the Christmas season, they have themed bears and outfits for them.
In addition to these fun-for-all attractions, this Christmas season will be the soft launch for the Dark Woods Buccaneer Bayou Adventure Mini Golf.
“We’ve just built a million-dollar miniature golf course,” Mardy Summerlin said. “It’s amazing. There’s nothing like it in the state of Louisiana.”
Buccaneer Bayou is a gulf coast and Caribbean pirate-themed golf course with five ponds, two waterfalls and 19 holes. Rather than being on a flat area, the course is divided into three major levels.
“As we’re developing ourselves into a park, we’re going to other vendors that can help us bring this local attraction up to a national level,” Jason Summerlin said. “So the theming company has worked for years with Dollywood and Silver Dollar City. They’ve done imagineering work for Disney.”
The grand opening for Buccaneer Bayou will be this March, but this Christmas season will allow people the opportunity to play before it’s officially opened.
With new attractions coming to Dark Woods and the seasonal attractions taking center stage, the Summerlins work as a team to make all of this possible.
“I do the ordering and decorating and merchandising, and he puts it all together and plugs it in and says it’s working,” Mardy Summerlin said.
However, the Summerlins explained they could not do all of this by themselves. Not only are all four of the Summerlins’ children and their spouses involved in Dark Woods, but they also have year-round and seasonal workers.
Jason Summerlin said they have three to four weeks to set up for Dark Woods Christmas, so there are multiple 12-to-16-hour work days for preparation. Only around 15 people help set up.
“No, we don’t have the city crews,” Jason Summerlin said.
Toward the last couple of weeks, the setup crew starts coming in later in the day until around midnight. In the end, though, all of the late nights and hours upon hours spent preparing are rewarding, Mardy Summerlin said.
“I love watching people sit around, pack up around the fire pits and just sit and visit, and they put their phones away,” she said. “The kids are playing, and they’re just visiting and talking with no electronics and just enjoying the Christmas music and being together.”
The atmosphere created within Dark Woods Christmas serves as a unique getaway for all.
“Y’know, businesses have to make money, but it’s not just about business out here. We say this is a family environment, and it is, but, even for the people behind the scenes, it’s a family, too,” Joe Hyatt, a manager at Dark Woods who has worked there since 2017, said. “They (Jason and Mardy) treat everybody like family. They created kind of this space where everybody feels welcome, included and part of the process.”
Working at Dark Woods Christmas has allowed Hyatt to make new sales for his small business, Cane River Rustic Decor.
“They (Jason and Mardy) actually offered to have me as a vendor. I got into woodwork about probably 8 years ago, and I make things like American flags out of wood; I do other things like signs, welcome signs,” Hyatt shared.
Normally, Hyatt is on the haunted side of Dark Woods for set up, and he attends Dark Woods Christmas as a vendor. This year, though, he is helping to set up lights, too.
“It’s always amazing to see how it goes from this dark and eerie, haunted thing in October to this festive, all lit-up thing. The transition to me is amazing,” Hyatt said. “I think being part of the process and watching the change is going to be really cool.”
Dark Woods Christmas is an event for people to attend whether they are visiting or locals.
“I think it’s just a fun family event to do, especially for visitors from out of town. Y’know the riverfront is great always, but this is kind of an alternate attraction to come and see,” Hyatt said. “Here, you actually get to get close to the lights and see it up close without a river in between you; it’s more personal.”
Located at 4343 University Parkway, Dark Woods Christmas will have its “turn on the lights” weekend of Nov. 29 to 30. After this, the program will resume every Wednesday through Sunday from Dec. 6 to Dec. 25. It will be open from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends.
“If you’re ready to engage and get into the holiday spirit, this is a good place to start it,” Mardy Summerlin said.
Tickets can be purchased onsite at the box office each night. For people aged 4 and up, tickets are $8. Children aged 3 and younger get in free.
“We’re open Christmas Eve and Christmas night, too, so I think it’s cool that people want to spend that time here,” Jason Summerlin said. “You can go anywhere and do that. You can stay home, you can go down the riverbank … but there’s a lot of people that just come here; they want to come here on Christmas Eve or Christmas. They can go anywhere, but they come here.”
When the Christmas season comes to an end, it doesn’t mean Dark Woods will come to an end. This March, Dark Woods Adventure Park will launch Buccaneer Bayou Adventure Mini Golf and celebrate their 10th anniversary.
