Christmas Traditions: Bright Nights in Stanley Park

This weekend we really kicked off our holiday season… we had our first Christmas party, and Christmas dinner of the season at our church, but we also headed out to Stanley Park to ride on the train. This year my parents, and one of my sisters joined us again, as well as my long lost best friend who has been crazy busy with school. It was the first time she has been to the train since she was child.

Since I was a kid we have been going to Bright Nights in Stanley Park, and last year was the first time that we took Evie. For me this is one of my biggest memories from the holiday season, and I hope that it will be something that we all continue to look forward to. It always puts me into more of a festive mood with the thousands, upon thousands of Christmas lights.
We had a little wait to for getting onto the train, but nothing more than usual. You will likely find yourself waiting 20+ minutes to get onto the train, but things run very smoothly. I was a bit worried that Evie would be freaking out the whole time, thankfully she was very distracted by all of the lights, and she did get to walk around lots as we waited. We went with the plan of riding the train first, and then wandering around to see all the light displays. This worked well for us, but could easily be done the other way. Arrive early and go look at the lights, and just keep an eye for where your train ride time group line up is. You could even jump over last minute to join the end of your time groups line.I strongly recommend buying your tickets online for the when you wish to attend, many nights are already selling out online. The only other way to get tickets is to purchase one the day of at the ticket booth. Those sell out quickly too so if you cannot get the date and time you want online, be sure to go first thing in the morning to purchase your tickets.

There are lots of great photo spots around Bright Nights. Our go to is always taking a photo by this Santa. It’s been about 5 years running now, sadly since my one sister couldn’t make it because she ditched us for some football event, we didn’t get a photo together this year. My other favourite spot is the tunnel of lights. You can get some gorgeous photos in there so make sure you bring a camera if you are scrambling for a last minute Christmas card photo.
There is a small Frozen theme woven throughout some of the train ride this year,  but it did not take over which was nice, unlike last year which was a major Charlie Brown theme. One of my favourite parts of this years ride though was the tunnel covered on different Olaf paintings that glow in a black light. If your kid has anything white on them they will glow very bright, which is always a huge hit!

We spent about 2 hours at the park and Evie was good about letting us know when she was done.

Will any of you be attending Bright Nights? Do you have a family outing that has become a Christmas tradition?

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