When we were in Louisiana in December, it was actually COLD. This was refreshing, as some holiday seasons it's downright balmy there, which makes it difficult to sit in front of the fireplace enjoying a nice hot cup of cocoa. (PITY US.) A couple of nights before Christmas, we all bundled up in our warm clothes and hopped in the car to check out Celebration in the Oaks.
Celebration in the Oaks is a yearly lights festival that takes up acres and acres of City Park. Logan and I had never been before and were super excited to take in some holiday cheer!
First things first, though. We had to marshall our resources by eating burgers bigger than our heads at Port of Call.
Port of Call is a hilarious dive bar/steakhouse that serves some of New Orleans's favorite burgers. It's often packed, but we were lucky enough to immediately get a table for our party of 7 (at the only table that could have accomodated us). The place is dark and festooned with weird island accountrements. The burgers are enormous and good. They're served with a baked potato rather than fries because the kitchen doesn't have a deep fryer.
Stuffed and fortified, we all headed back to City Park.
The park that night was beautiful and there was so much to look at! A huge Christmas tree made out of poinsettias; a Cajun Night Before Chrismas light show; a hothouse full of ferns; dinosaur lights; an enormous model train set; and on and on and on.
We waited in line to take the little train around the grounds. If you do go to the light show, and you want to take the train, GET THERE AND GET IN LINE EARLY. The line got ridiculously long later on.
(warning–family pictures!)
While we waited, we took some pics with the Ferris Wheel in the background.
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The train was cute, but open to the elements, and thus very cold. And romantic.
Then, we toddled over to the carousel, which is outfitted with gorgeous antique riding animals. While we waited, we plotted which ones we'd ride.
This kid cracked us up. Hiyo, Silver! He held his hand like that the ENTIRE TIME. Perhaps he'd only ever seen a bronco buster and was afraid the wooden horse might start bucking?
Kids on giraffes are cute, even if they don't look particularly impressed.
Then, finally, it was our turn!
They don't tell you how downright scary it can be, riding a lion. GQ was, as ever, the brave patriarch. He took one for the team and protected us all.
Logan and I snagged horses that went up and down, because we are also very daring.
I hadn't been on a carousel in years, and totally loved the nostalgic fun of the whole thing. Grins abound!
I'm so glad we got to check out Celebration in the Oaks! I tried to take a few pics of the lights, but they're all pretty bad, to be honest. That's what we get for limiting ourselves to phone pics when it's dark, I suppose. (Here's proof, in case you don't believe me. Revel in the glorious display!)
Also, to people who had trouble commenting on the blog yesterday, I'm sorry. I can't imagine what's going on. Clearly, this is another reason for me to migrate the blog from Typepad to somewhere not-typepad. Sigh.
