How to make the most of the holiday lights festival with toddlers

I don’t remember “holiday lights” being a thing when I was a kid, but honestly I swam competitively from elementary school through college, and the winter swimming season usually meant not doing much else. But now, it seems like every institution has some sort of holiday light festival, whether it’s specifically Christmas or not.

Blurred and luminous photos.

What I love about these holiday light displays, at least the ones we’ve chosen as our annual family tradition, is how joyful they are. We cheered and hollered and oohed and aahed over every little light show. This is truly one of my favorite “new” traditions and one that I try to schedule right after Thanksgiving so as to kick off the holiday season in style.

Timing is everything.

With a baby, and now a toddler, bedtime is one of the hardest boundaries for me to stick to. I know not all children are like this, but there is one child who needs to be postponed. It’s amazing how my sweet and cuddly toddlers turn into FERAL (adorable) Gremlins as soon as the clock strikes 7pm when there’s sugar coursing through their veins.

Luckily, we live in New England and it was dark by 4pm! So that’s when we always book our tickets. We left early, prepared lunch as dinner for my toddler, ate some more by the campfire, and called it a night. Now that they’re older we can usually go back to the house to get into a proper bath/bedtime routine, but as babies and little ones we’d pack our pajamas, change their last diaper/nighttime diaper there, and hope they passed out in the car and we could move. (Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but from now on I will never get sleepy on Lord Huron.)

I’ve never visited any of these, but here’s a quick summary of the lights/nighttime holidays in New England that I’ve gotten from friends and family:

• Night Lights at the New England Botanic Garden of Tower Hill in Bolyston, MA
• Christmas at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA
• Winter light at Naumkeag in Stockbridge, MA
• Boston Lights at Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, MA
• Winter Wonderland at the Strawbery-Banke Museum in Portsmouth, NH
• Holly Jolly Ride in Litchfield, NH
• The Glow Garden at Coastal Maine Botanic Gardens in Boothbay, ME
• Freeport Sparkle Weekend in Freeport, ME
• Prelude to Christmas in Kennebunkport, ME
• Christmas by the Sea in Ogunquit, ME or Camden, ME
• Wassail Weekend in Woodstock, VT

Let me know if you have a favorite in your area!

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Choose a lighting experience that suits your family’s needs.

Part of this is the type of place you choose to visit. I finally found our light show mainly because we were already members there, but here’s what I think works:

• It’s a walk-through experience, not a drive-through, so it’s immersive and lively. (I mean, there is so much to see. Our favorite place is the train village setting!)
• They serve real food so we can all have dinner. (As I mentioned, I packed for my toddler so I knew they would eat something.) It’s kind of lunch-y/pub-y but it’s real food, not just snacks or chocolate.
• They have fire pits at several places throughout the experience so you can warm up and/or roast a marshmallow or two, which my toddler really enjoyed.
• There was nothing else to see—only the lights. There are no zoo animals or indoor playgrounds or fireworks or any AMAZING THINGS. It’s just the lights, which are quite stimulating!
• Most importantly, this was a place we had been before, during the day, and we knew the rules, we knew where the bathrooms were, and we didn’t need a map to get around. I can’t stress this enough—if you’re going somewhere after bedtime, you need to have an exit strategy, and this is easy because we know where everything is!

It’s okay not to join in on the holiday craziness.

I think the biggest thing to remember is that it’s okay if you’re still not in a place to do an outing like this. The same places that host winter lights also have similar Halloween-themed events, which I’m especially excited about this year. But in October, it was still light at 4pm, so we had to book tickets at 7pm.

And it was a major disaster that ended up taking our toddler out in less than an hour. I spent days trying to figure out what was wrong and realizing the time difference 🤦🏼‍♀️ Maybe you have a kid who goes to bed late or hasn’t had a nap yet, but ooof, right now we can’t do anything after bedtime. It’s okay if you can’t either! We often go with our good friends and they are joined by their two children, each year alternating who will choose their oldest child among the two children under two years old.

What I mean by this is, there are a LOT of holiday events you can choose from, and it doesn’t matter if you choose one or two, or change them up every year. We did a meet and greet with Santa last year and you know what? We won’t do that again based on how my son handled it. (I *think* it was one of those happy-go-lucky emotional outbursts? Who’s to say?)

My favorite holiday book.

I say “holidays” on purpose because most are non-denominational or include some holiday/religion within them:

Thank you for being here.

Toddler 🤝 train

The holiday season can be truly magical if you let it. It’s a huge mental burden for parents (usually Moms, let’s be real here) and I feel it. I’ve baked eight dozen cookies and I still have a few more batches to go. Plus, there are tons of events to plan—we’re going on vacation to Portland, ME for Maine Narrow Gauge Polar Express which I really can’t wait to experience—and we’ll also be doing the Nutcracker for the first time.

Even when I feel a little overwhelmed by the chaos of the season, I try to remember the tree is lit, the fire is roaring, and the whole house smells like caramel and peppermint. Take a deep breath, friends. Deep breath.

For the cake I bake only once a year,

Kayla

If you liked this post, please consider supporting my work. I’m just a mom in the toddler years trying to create core memories for our entire family while minimizing the meltdowns—I really hope this helps you do the same.

This post was originally published on Traveling with Toddlers. Subscribe for more real-life travel advice, toddler-friendly itineraries, and tried-and-true gear recommendations.

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