The Not-So-Enchanted Garden of Lights

On Tuesday night, we made our annual trip to Rock City for the Enchanted Garden of Lights.

I was not enchanted.

Our kids were worn out. They were worn out when we started. But, we had to go. At the risk of sounding like Tevye, it's tradition. We go every year.

Which is why we should not have gotten lost and taken an extra hour to get there. But I was okay with that. I even maintained my composure on the very foggy, winding road up Lookout Mountain. Except for the one time my husband thought swerving to scare me would be funny. I'm still not laughing.

There was a light mist in the air- enough to keep a lot of the crowds away. We had two free passes, which meant that we only had to pay for a ticket for Big Sister. So, despite the long trip, late arrival and tired kids, things were going pretty well.

Until Little Sister started asking us to carry her. And until Big Sister's excited anticipation of familiar parts of the path turned into boredom and frustration.

But the real turn of events happened after we took our family photo in Santa's sleigh. Big Sis told us she had to go to the bathroom "real bad," and we hurried to the closest one. She didn't make it. I had to call the Hubs from inside the bathroom, have him send Little Sis in so that he could run to the car, and then wait. FOR. EVER.

It wasn't pretty. There was a lot of fussing. From all three of us. After the hand-dryer made Big Sister's Tinkerbell shoes wearable again, we tried to get back to enjoying the lights. And the creeptastic Fairyland Cavern.

And somewhere in the Cavern, Little Sister peed her pants too.

I wish I were making this up.

And yes, before you ask, I DID ask her if she needed to go. After all, we had just spent enough time in the bathroom to start receiving catalogs there. But no, she apparently saw Big Sister's accident as precedent. Or a challenge.

Either that, or she has been watching Billy Madison while we weren't looking.

Fortunately, we were at the end of the trail, soon to be home and in non-pee clothes. We just had to make it through the dumb gift shop... Thank goodness for the unopened Happy Meal toys in the car! They at least kept some of the fussing at bay.



I know this post is a little, well, negative. It was not my favorite moment of the holiday season.

But it wasn't a complete disaster, either.

Little Sister noticed every light and said, "WOW!" more times than I could count. Big Sister rushed to sit in front of the Nativity show and then sat there mesmerized. We sang songs and nursery rhymes in Fairyland Caverns. We laughed.

And we got pictures of some of those parts. The GOOD parts.









Here's to focusing on the good parts.


P.S. I know the quality of the photos leaves a lot to be desired, but the mist was crazy! And I deliberately left the red-eye in that one picture because it was creepier AFTER I tried to fix it.