December Lights

Sorry for not have written in awhile. Last full week of work has been crazy and lots of stuff has been going on. But I'll try to catch you up.

So last weekend I went to December Lights in Balboa Park. I wasn't how Californians celebrated the Holiday season when it's 70 degrees outside. They celebrate with lots of lights to make up for the lack of bright, white snow. It was pretty cool. Lots of artists and food vendors lined the streets inside Balboa's Spanish promenade. And all the museums opened their doors for free from like 5 - 10 p.m.

The entire night was fantastic, but had two favorite parts. Balboa Park is huge. It's the largest urban park in the nation. Inside is the San Diego Zoo, 14 museums, 20 gardens and the Old Globe Theatre and every Holiday season The Globe puts on the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The entire area surrounding the Globe is w/ decorations that would make Dr. Seuss proud including the oversized, green Grinch peering over the rooftops. They opened up the actual theatre for us to see and it actually snows on the Whoville set. Yeah, super cool. Then outside, you could take your photo w/ the Grinch in front of Whoville Christmas tree. He was more popular than Santa.




The second best part was a place called The Artist Village. Artists from across the country compete for a spot in one of the 26 studios in this little section of Balboa. If they win, they are allowed to create, exhibit and sell their art from that studio for a year. And they're all really good. Lots of different forms of art are available to see and purchase, but I could spend hours in this one shop that took eggs and created ornaments out of them. (What's the big deal?? We do that every year. It's called Easter.) Well, let me tell you, imagine taking that easter egg, then cutting a hole on both sides, then decorating it for 10 tedious hours. I also watched a rock be cut from it's original shape to be polished into a perfect circle. We watched for half an hour. It was so entrancing.

December Lights closed at 10 p.m. We stayed until midnight. There was so much to see. Balboa Park is beautiful during the day, but at night, you can see a different side of it's beauty. And the holidays only enhances it.