Christmas Lights

This weekend, my family piled in the car with some friends and we headed down to Richmond to see the Christmas lights at the botanical garden. I’m always on the lookout for a good light display, and when my friend texted me this one, I was sold. There’s a drive-through display somewhat near us, but it’s the same every year, so once you’ve been, it’s kind anticlimactic. Plus, you drive through. So you can’t really stop and admire something you like particularly. You have to keep trucking to keep traffic flowing.

Anyway, because we were headed down that way, we stopped for dinner at Sonic on the way. This was a big highlight for the boys as the nearest one is thirty minutes away and I’m simply not driving that far for fast food unless I have some other reason in mind. No matter how good it is. (And between you and me, I like Sonic fine, but I don’t go insane about it like the boys do. It’s just completely adequate to me. Of course, I don’t get their shakes or freezes and I’m told those are the selling points.)

We finally made it down and, on our first approach, they had police officers blocking the entrance. Were they full already? Was it not open tonight? (It was, according to the website, but stranger things have happened.) We decided to do a big circle and see if we could find another place to park and, when we got back around, they were letting cars in. Weird. But good.

Parked and in, we spent nearly two hours wandering through the lights. The theme this year was H2Woah – so ocean-y things all over the place. It was wonderful. The boys had a blast. We all did, really. And when you throw in the fact that it wasn’t crazily cold, it was, all around, a very enjoyable way to spend a Saturday night.

Here are few little snippets of what we saw.