Christmas Lights & Hot Cocoa

A week or so back there was the Parade of Lights in downtown Denver.  I had it written in my planner since September, and was excited about going to it - but when it came down to it, we didn't.  Up until about fifteen minutes before we were supposed to leave for the parade, we were planning on going, and then at the last minute decided not to go.  John had spent that entire day begging me to change my mind so we could stay home, citing complaints of the stress of parking, the cold weather, and the crowds.  Eventually I wore down, and after all his complaining, the entire idea lost its excitement and allure.  In return for sacrificing a wonderful family outing, I made John promise to take us to look at Christmas lights in some of the areas of Denver sometime in the next week or two.  It was the lights I was really interested in anyway. 

Last night I finally cashed in on his promise (it wasn't very cold last night)- we packed up Johnny in some warm comfy clothes, grabbed a fleece blanket & our camera, and mixed up some hot cocoa in travel mugs.  Since it was dark outside, a little cold, and we had a toddler who is impossible to walk with on a sidewalk (he tends to dart out to unsafe places and goes limp and boneless if we try to stop him), we opted to drive around and look at lights rather than walk around. 

This was Johnny watching the lights:

 

 

Did you notice that he was looking through his toy binoculars backwards in the first picture?  Well, he was.  He refuses to look through them correctly - it was adorable though. :)  (He is holding a glow stick in his hand, which you can't really tell in this picture.)  As you can tell from the photos he was really excited to be looking at Christmas lights! He sang to himself and chattered away as we drove around.  For the first part of the trip, I was on the phone talking to my grandparents (called to wish my Grandpa a "happy birthday"), but after that we continued to drive around in search of houses or neighborhoods with lights.  Sadly, there weren't very many.  The Cherry Creek District and some of downtown had some lights around commercial areas, and we got lucky in a few neighborhoods that had quite a few lights, but for the most part not too many Christmas lights.  I'm not sure if it is because Denver is not really all that festive of a city or the economy (electricity costs money, don't you know?), but there just wasn't that many lights.  We drove around for almost an hour and only saw lights for part of that time. 

It was worth it though, because it made Johnny happy to look at lights and spend time with mommy and daddy.  :)  Next year we hope to do this again, but we'll probably try to research places to go and look at lights before we head out.  All in all though, it was a fun evening and a great way to spend time as a family!!