Mom was visiting for the entire month of December, and since she likes festive stuff just as much as I do, we took advantage of as many clear nights as we could to go out and see Christmas lights. Our first stop was Bellevue. The botanical gardens there lights up for Christmas as "Bellevue Garden d'Lights," and the LDS church next to the temple sponsors a "Festival of the Nativity." There was also Snowflake Lane in Bellevue and Redmond Lights nearby, but I worried that Ty would go crazy staying in one place for a long time, like he did during the lines and parades at Disneyland. I picked these two places instead, since I figured we could keep him moving and keep him happy.
The Garden d'Lights is short compared to the other places we went to, but it's very beautiful and the price is right. They have several free days and it's only $5 when it's not free. We loved the moving lights representing fountains, rivers, and icicles. It was also interesting to see big bunches of lights clumped together to look like flowers.
They have over 500 displays from 44 countries. I thought the one that looks like a Buddhist nativity was very interesting. One corner table had nativities made out of recycled materials, such as soda cans. They also always have a live nativity. The baby Jesus in this one was a girl.
I also really liked anytime I saw a Snowglobe nativity. Some were super impressive, and I'll never be able to own one while there are small children in my house.In other parts of the building there were children's nativities made from toys, a room of nativity arts and crafts, a beautiful room detailing the life of Christ, and live musical performances in the chapel. I would have loved to sit down and listen, but I knew Tyler would never sit still, and I didn't dare release him near the nativities.
There was also a room where you could dress up as characters in the nativity and have your photo taken. We picked the 3 wise men. To our great astonishment Tyler actually kept the hat on. These pictures are fantastic! It totally looks like he's worshiping and praying with us. They posted the pics to shutterfly so we could download them later.
Mom wanted to take a few more pictures of just me and Ty, but by then he decided he'd had enough of the hat. I would have expected him to take it off from the very beginning, so I'm just glad he kept it on as long as he did.
For more entries in the Christmas in the Northwest series, see
Stacy I love this and the wonderful blogging with so much information about each location
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