Luminary Walk at Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens

Greetings friends! I am back today with one of those festive December posts I told you about towards the end of November. If you are new here, I mentioned that my husband has been in management for UPS for over 25 years; therefore, we don't really do to much to celebrate the holidays (you can read more about this here). With our families far away and not being able to travel due to his work schedule, Christmastime tends to be a bit lonely for me. To brighten up the season, I decided this year I would schedule something every Saturday to get me (us) out of the house and enjoy the beauty of Kansas City at Christmas time (Saturday is his one night off a week between Thanksgiving and New Years). This past Saturday, we had tickets to the Luminary Walk at Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens. This is a huge event...and this year marks it's 25th anniversary. The weather was beautiful in the 40s and it was sold out for the night with thousands of attendees. With the amount of traffic, parking is at a premium, so they park people at a local school and bus attendees over to the event. We had tickets for 6:00 PM, so we went to an early dinner at our favorite Mexican food restaurant before attending. When we arrived, we picked up a hot chocolate for me and a hot cider for my husband...then we spent about an hour and a half walking the illuminated pathways. There were wonderful musical performances throughout, a quiet candlelit woodland walk, a bright and colorful children's walk, a gnome village, thousands of twinkling lights and candles, holiday trains were running in the train garden, fire pits were lit along the way, and seasonal food and beverages were offered throughout...plus a visit from Santa. While it was quite busy, the spacious grounds and paths helped to spread out the crowds and we enjoyed a leisurely, magical stroll throughout the property. As promised, here are the photos I took along the way...and yes, the luminaries that line the walking paths are actual lit candles in small glass enclosures...

Our next outing will be with our neighbors - one couple has rented a bus to drive us around Kansas City to see the Christmas lights. We are all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters and one of our stops is a lit up local winery, so it should be a fun night!

I hope you are enjoying this holiday season and taking a little time to see the beauty that surrounds you...