Fantasy of Lights at Oak Meadow Park

An annual Holiday tradition in our house is going to the Fantasy of Lights at Oak Meadow and Vasona parks.  Oak Meadow and Vasona are adjoining parks in Los Gatos. Each year Vasona is decked out in lights, and cars line-up for miles to drive through.

Oak Meadow's Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad runs the Holiday Train, and it is fun to bundle up the kids, and take the train to see the Holiday lights. The lights are pretty elaborate. There is a dragon, a train, a soldier blasting a cannon over the road (it explodes on the other side), a tooth holding a toothbrush, it goes on and on.

In previous years the train option was pretty low key, hardly a line at all. This year however, the line was really long ...about forty five minutes long. This didn't discourage us. Jonathan bought tickets, while I took the boys to the bathroom. When we met back up the line had gotten longer -- now our wait was about fifty minutes. Ugh.

During Fantasy of Lights the W.E. "Bill" Mason Carousel is free. I took the boys on the carousel while Jonathan waited in line. Of course this was the time that Caleb decided to assert his authority. We were the last allowed to board that ride, and Caleb saw the red bench while we were heading to the last two available horses.  Of course we didn't have time to stop at the red bench, and so Caleb threw a temper tantrum.

Xander happily got on his horse, while Caleb cried. He and I ended up sitting in the blue bench. Once the ride started going, Caleb realized his mistake, and wanted to ride a horse, but then it was too late. Ah the drama of being three.

After the ride, I calmed Caleb down by taking the boys to watch the next train hitch. All was forgotten, and there now was only two train rides in front of us. I took over standing in line while Jonathan got popcorn. At $1 a pop it was a good deal, it was also quite tasty.

The boys ate popcorn while we waited ... and then it started raining. Jonathan thought they might cancel the train. A little guy at the front of the line was balling his eyes out, he thought the same thing. By this point there were only three train rides left.

They didn't cancel the train, they added sand to the railroad to make sure the train didn't have trouble. Then it was our turn.

Yes it was rainy, but our boys didn't notice. In fact Caleb wants to go back again. He wants a carousel do over.  The Holiday Train runs through December 27th. It is closed Christmas Eve and Christmas night.