Making Memories

If you haven’t been to Fantasy In Lights at Callaway Gardens, it really is something to experience. Located in Pine Mountain, the 13,000 acre park is decorated with over eight million lights from late November through Christmas. Butterflies, toy soldiers, Christmas trees, candy canes and other holiday themes delight both children and adults. My personal favorite is Snowflake Valley where the trees are filled with twinkling snowflakes. It’s truly a magical place.

You can drive through the park in your car or ride the open-air trolley. We love to ride the “Jolly Trolley.” It’s fun to snuggle up together and sing Christmas carols with the other passengers. You have to bundle up, though. I recommend heavy coats, scarves, gloves…the whole works. We even bring blankets to share.

This year my aunt brought her two granddaughters from South Carolina to go to Fantasy In Lights with us. My boys adore their cousins, so they were beside themselves with excitement about them coming to stay.  Since the kids are still in school we had to go on a prime night, Saturday. I waited too long to buy tickets, so we were stuck with a 9 p.m. trolley time. My bad.

The weather was terrible this past Saturday. Cold and rainy. But we had high hopes that we could still make the best of it. We visited the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center first. I had told my aunt and the girls how wonderful it was, hundreds of butterflies dancing around your head as you walked through the 80 degree conservatory. Except this time there weren’t hundreds of butterflies, but hundreds of people. I think we saw three butterflies up close – and we had to hunt for them.

My youngest son, Liam, started grumbling that he was hungry, so we took a few pictures by the Christmas tree and got the heck out of there. There is a very small window of opportunity to get Liam fed once he says he’s hungry before he totally loses it. We got in our cars and immediately headed to the The Plant Room at the Mountain Creek Inn for their Saturday night Italian buffet.

We arrived at the restaurant around 4:20 p.m., but the buffet didn’t start until 5 p.m. We stood at the entrance waiting to be seated. After a few minutes of seeing no one, one of the wait staff appeared and asked if she could help us. I thought it was a strange question. I said, “Seven.” She said, “To eat?” An even stranger question since we were at a restaurant. “Yes,” I answered. My aunt and I gave each other puzzled looks.

After we were seated, we ordered a pizza for the kids and a side salad for Liam, hoping it temporarily satisfy him. We all watched nervously as he shoveled the baby greens with ranch dressing into his mouth – praying it would last him until the pizza arrived.

A few moments before 5, our waitress tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear, “I think it’s opening now. You’d better get up there.” As I got up, I saw the line coming into the restaurant. It was like they had opened the floodgates. Hundreds of people starting filing in. We had to wait for an opening, a slow walker, to cut through their path to get to the buffet. My husband said, “I think they weren’t supposed to let us in.” No wonder we got such a strange response when we asked to be seated. We stuffed ourselves silly at the buffet. The food was good. Warm bread pudding for dessert. Everyone left happy.

After dinner, we drove up the road to the Fantasy In Lights entrance. It was 6 p.m. by that time and we thought we would park and visit the indoor (and heated!) Christmas Village. But first we had to brave the giant mud bowl of a parking lot. I was driving my aunt’s car and we were able to make it up the gentle slope without too much trouble. But the larger cars, including my husband driving all four kids in the Silverado, were not so lucky. We were concerned as we watched the tires spinning and spewing mud, but they were able to make it to a space safely.

We trudged down the hill, the adults trying to avoid the puddles, while my boys jumped in every one. We were all soaking wet by the time we made it into the Christmas Village. We spent two hours inside. The kids enjoyed all of the decorated Christmas trees. There was an area with toy guns and old fashioned stick horses. Both boys loved the guns – mom, not so much.  Liam galloped around in circles on the stick horse. Michael painted clay Christmas decorations with his cousins at one booth and all four kids decorated sugar cookies. Michael loaded his cookie up with all kinds of candies, patting the goodies down to get them to stick to the icing he glopped on.

After we’d exhausted the activities inside the Christmas Village, we headed outside to Robin Lake Beach for the nativity lights. As if it couldn’t get any more miserable outside – it had gotten colder. And the rain was still coming down. My husband Scott offered to walk to the car to get umbrellas and blankets. By the time he got back we were completely soaked through and miserable. Michael looked like he’d just gotten out of the bath. I’d reached the point where I was ready to call it a night – lights or no lights. The adults were in agreement it was best to skip the trolley and go home. The kids were the real test, though. My husband put it to them this way, “Hey – how would you guys like to go home and watch a Chirstmas movie and drink hot chocolate? I’ll even start a fire!” I held my breath and waiting for the crying to begin. Much to my surprise, the kids said, “Yeah!”

The trip back out to the parking lot was even slipperier than before. Each row had a river flowing through it with no dry place to walk. So we trudged uphill through the cold muddy water. Anybody remember the Mud Olympics at the Georgia Renaissance Festival? Oh, yeah. I braved the pouring down rain to help Scott load the kids into the truck before making my way back to my aunt’s car. Then we watched as Scott backed out of his space and hit another vehicle.

Ok, so this year’s trip to Callaway Gardens wasn’t so magical after all. But we were together…making memories.