Christmas Lights in New Orleans
When we traveled to New Orleans this past weekend, we were looking for an activity to thrust us into the Christmas season. A few friends recommended we visit Celebration in the Oaks at City Park. We trust our friends, so a visit to the celebration was basically predestined. It didn’t hurt that we both enjoy Christmas lights and decorations, plus it’s one of those things that Jackie just absolutely loves – and her vote counts for 51%.
I remember touring her Norman Rockwell postcardish hometown of Indiana, PA enjoying the festive lights soon after we met. There is nary a Christmastime past in our three plus decades together where those trips are not emulated. Apparently, this year’s kickoff was going to take place in the Big Easy.
The Christmas light displays at Christmas in the Oaks, take part in two phases. The driving tour is about thirty minutes long and covers two miles throughout the beautiful park. There are a slew of cool decorations lit up and many more lights spread throughout the park’s majestic namesake oaks. The displays feature more than one million lights! The arrangements included plenty of movement, were colorful, eye-catching and spread out everywhere.
One of the unexpected highlights was tuning our radio to the park station and having a chance to enjoy some authentic Cajun Christmas tunes as we zipped around the park. Surprisingly – New Orleans tunes and Christmas music make a fine pairing. We enjoyed the trip and thought the $40 carload price was about right.
We also bought tickets to the walking tour. Unfortunately, we didn’t really pay attention to what we were purchasing and failed to realize that more than a dozen rides were included with the pass. We left barely enough time to tour the park, and unfortunately, missed out on most of the rides.
Again, on the walking tour, the lights were awesome. Everything was just on a smaller scale. We did get to sample a few of the rides, including the Merry-Go Round, Tilt-A-Whirl, Bumper Cars and a Ferris Wheel, where the three of us were CRAMMED into one car, and our daughter laughed nonstop for ten minutes. Did we mention New Orleans was an open-container zone?
Definitely a cool, kid-friendly or adult-friendly way to spend a few hours. Tickets to the walking tour were $35 each, but discounted by $10 each if combined with a driving pass. If you are going to do the rides, it’s a good deal.
I liked it. Jackie loved it. If you’re close by, we think visitors should do at least one of the two activities at Celebration in the Oaks.
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Bob and Jackie
Sunshine Vagabonds
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Here’s a quick sampling of the Celebration in the Oaks Christmas lights displays: