If you haven’t made plans to go to the Festival of Lights in Zion? Change your plans, you HAVE to go!
Mark, Maggie and I went last night. I was a little hesitant because we started the evening at 7:30 p.m., which is right around Maggie’s bedtime, but why not?! You only get to see your daughter look at Christmas trees, lights and Santa through the eyes of a two year old once!
We turned the corner from Sheridan onto Shiloh and saw some lights on trees. Try to think about how some cities light their trees down their main streets; you can follow the light strand on some trees making big zig zags all over the tree. Not here…the green lights illuminated the trees – just amazing!
The first house we came upon was Zion’s historic “Shiloh House”. The decorations were beautiful. My picture doesn’t do it justice, but there were candles and lights in every window. There were multiple trees and wreaths throughout its Victorian inspiration. It was so warm and inviting. We passed other homes that were really festive too.
We made the turn and saw the entrance to Kringle’s Kingdom. The trolley was sitting out in front, inviting you to enjoy so many activities.
We drove by the entrance and headed toward the drive-thru display first. We passed many light displays that I wanted to take home with me. Take a look at the elaborate lighting on this little bridge. It was just beautiful. Maggie wanted to jump out of the car right then!
We drove under an archway of snowflakes to enter the winding drive through Shiloh Park. There were penguins, elves, Christmas trees, dinosaurs, teddy bears and even a moving jack-in-the-box. You had to drive really slow and keep your eyes moving back and forth to either side of the car. So much fun!
After our drive, we walked through Kringle’s Kingdom. Imagine this…an outdoor pool complex has been taken over and it is HEAVILY decorated for the holidays. There are over 450 lighted evergreen trees and more than 75 displays. The only way I can explain the displays are “life size” dioramas. They were incredible.
The little trail wound around back and forth and had something new around every corner. Maggie was like a kid in a candy shop. She was so excited to see the lights on the trees; you should have seen her surprise when she saw a train that was her size! She was jumping around for 10 minutes.
Each display had a different theme; many had dolls, teddy bears, mice and the Zee Bee, famous in Zion (high school mascot). They were decorated with lights, tinsel…any holiday decoration you can imagine.
We turned another corner and heard a knock on a window. Are you kidding? Was it really him? Santa Claus was in his home. Maggie wasn’t overly excited to go and see him this year (it’s her age); however he didn’t mind. He continued to wave out his window until Maggie was out of sight.
As we weaved through the displays, we rounded another bend (lit reindeers in their barn) and saw Santa’s sleigh. How on earth did Santa’s sleigh land in the midst of an outdoor pool complex? Well, it landed on the Santa runway! Yep, Santa has his own runway, right there in the midst of Zion. It was marked with flickering red and green lights that lit the strip!
I grabbed a Festival of Lights brochure on our way out to see what else was going on. We had to run home to get Maggie into bed, but we are definitely going to go back for the trolley ride and the story book reading of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’. I can’t believe how quickly the time went by!
You must go to the Festival of Lights website http://www.cityofzion.com/fol/index.html. They have listed all of the activities and taken photos to get you excited about going! The site says that you won’t find a collection of holiday events like it anywhere in northeast Illinois – THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!! The Festival of Lights will run through December 30th. Generally, the activities begin around 7:00 p.m. although the drive-thru display opens at sundown.
Did you grab your keys yet? Are you in your car? Don’t forget your family and friends. They won’t want to miss this!!
[+/-] click to show/hide this post
Mark, Maggie and I went last night. I was a little hesitant because we started the evening at 7:30 p.m., which is right around Maggie’s bedtime, but why not?! You only get to see your daughter look at Christmas trees, lights and Santa through the eyes of a two year old once!
We turned the corner from Sheridan onto Shiloh and saw some lights on trees. Try to think about how some cities light their trees down their main streets; you can follow the light strand on some trees making big zig zags all over the tree. Not here…the green lights illuminated the trees – just amazing!
The first house we came upon was Zion’s historic “Shiloh House”. The decorations were beautiful. My picture doesn’t do it justice, but there were candles and lights in every window. There were multiple trees and wreaths throughout its Victorian inspiration. It was so warm and inviting. We passed other homes that were really festive too.
We made the turn and saw the entrance to Kringle’s Kingdom. The trolley was sitting out in front, inviting you to enjoy so many activities.
We drove by the entrance and headed toward the drive-thru display first. We passed many light displays that I wanted to take home with me. Take a look at the elaborate lighting on this little bridge. It was just beautiful. Maggie wanted to jump out of the car right then!
We drove under an archway of snowflakes to enter the winding drive through Shiloh Park. There were penguins, elves, Christmas trees, dinosaurs, teddy bears and even a moving jack-in-the-box. You had to drive really slow and keep your eyes moving back and forth to either side of the car. So much fun!
After our drive, we walked through Kringle’s Kingdom. Imagine this…an outdoor pool complex has been taken over and it is HEAVILY decorated for the holidays. There are over 450 lighted evergreen trees and more than 75 displays. The only way I can explain the displays are “life size” dioramas. They were incredible.
The little trail wound around back and forth and had something new around every corner. Maggie was like a kid in a candy shop. She was so excited to see the lights on the trees; you should have seen her surprise when she saw a train that was her size! She was jumping around for 10 minutes.
Each display had a different theme; many had dolls, teddy bears, mice and the Zee Bee, famous in Zion (high school mascot). They were decorated with lights, tinsel…any holiday decoration you can imagine.
We turned another corner and heard a knock on a window. Are you kidding? Was it really him? Santa Claus was in his home. Maggie wasn’t overly excited to go and see him this year (it’s her age); however he didn’t mind. He continued to wave out his window until Maggie was out of sight.
As we weaved through the displays, we rounded another bend (lit reindeers in their barn) and saw Santa’s sleigh. How on earth did Santa’s sleigh land in the midst of an outdoor pool complex? Well, it landed on the Santa runway! Yep, Santa has his own runway, right there in the midst of Zion. It was marked with flickering red and green lights that lit the strip!
I grabbed a Festival of Lights brochure on our way out to see what else was going on. We had to run home to get Maggie into bed, but we are definitely going to go back for the trolley ride and the story book reading of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’. I can’t believe how quickly the time went by!
You must go to the Festival of Lights website http://www.cityofzion.com/fol/index.html. They have listed all of the activities and taken photos to get you excited about going! The site says that you won’t find a collection of holiday events like it anywhere in northeast Illinois – THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!! The Festival of Lights will run through December 30th. Generally, the activities begin around 7:00 p.m. although the drive-thru display opens at sundown.
Did you grab your keys yet? Are you in your car? Don’t forget your family and friends. They won’t want to miss this!!
[+/-] click to show/hide this post
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home