Christmas Time...

... is almost here.

My family doesn't celebrate Christmas yet we've spent the last three nights doing Christmas-y things. Friday, a Manhattan Transfer concert. Saturday, a neighbor's wonderfully sung cabaret of Christmas tunes and today, a tour through a St. Louis tradition.

The Winter Wonderland in Tilles Park has been around since 1986. Hosted by the Parks Service of St. Louis, it is a sight to behold. We have often driven by during the day but never braved the line of cars on McKnight Road to enter. While my mom and I were driving around waiting for Brentwood Blvd's little neighborhood to turn on its blue lights that have fascinated me so, we headed over to Tilles to see what all the fuss was about. Luckily, or unluckily, the Wonderland was open, but only to carriages. So we vowed to return after driving past it yet again.

Despite the seriously chilly temperatures (can you say single digits and don't tell me the windchill), we all piled into the car. I was armed with the camera but unwilling to deep-freeze us by rolling down the window unless absolutely necessary. The line of cars (with headlights off, but unfortunately still with brake lights) moved slowly enough that I managed to get some really decent pictures.

I over-shot of course, not knowing which ones would turn out. When I put the card in, there were 713 pictures; but there were pictures from other nights than this. All in all, I threw out a good 500-odd photos that just weren't right and came up with a respectable 30-odd photos that I was fairly pleased with. There's still some red brake light glare, or it wasn't perfectly captured - but it's still pretty amazing since most pictures were taken in motion.

Here's a select few highlights:







See the rest here.

As I said before, we don't celebrate Christmas, but there's something to be said about driving through this 'winter wonderland' listening to good, old-fashioned and classic Christmas songs on the radio. It just feels like the holidays to me. Plus, it was freaking freezing out and we were bundled up like crazy.


Next up: Happy List, Week 4. And yes, I didn't post last (Saturday) night) because I was attacked by allergies and went to bed early. Ah well, nobody's perfect!