ZooAtlanta: Illuminights

For something a little different this year, we decided to go visit the special Chinese Lantern Festival at ZooAtlanta. There were around 80 lanterns of various sizes depicting animals and flowers. I wasn’t sure what to expect as sometimes pictures can make an event look better than it actually is, but this was worth our time and money! We loved it and really enjoyed all of the different lanterns as you will see with the number of pictures I am sharing. The festival runs through January 16, so if you are in the Atlanta area, there is still time to visit!

Because we visited on a Sunday evening (before the peak weeks when prices went up) and the children had school the following day, we decided to go at 6 PM. We booked a reservation time online and enjoyed a discount because we are zoo members. The evening was cold but not very cold, the temperatures hovering around 50 degrees.

The lanterns are handmade and handpainted and each took hours to create. We really enjoyed the details on them and were surprised to see that a number of them had moving parts. Everyone’s favorite animal was featured!

My boys enjoy watching the Wild Kratts show so it was really fun to have my youngest spout out some animal facts as we walked through the zoo. He was disappointed he didn’t get to see live animals but I promised him a visit which we are taking today.

It is pretty impressive how they created these lanterns. You could tell they are fragile as the weather created small tears in some of them. I really enjoyed the details in each.

This group of jellyfish was quite impressive! The tall pink one was about 20 feet tall! This was one of our favorites.

Of course, this Chinese dragon was everyone’s favorite: it is 100 feet long! Look at those colors! The head moved from side to side. It was just gorgeous! I am using this picture as my current wallpaper on my cell phone. It just is a vibrant piece of art.

At first I was afraid that there would not be enough lanterns to keep us entertained (I had not read how many there were before we left but we were at the zoo for about one and half hours. They did have some vendors with cocoa and souvenirs and light up toys.

This month has gone by very fast between school activities, shopping and trying to do some of our advent calendar activities. We definitely have slacked off on those: we just can’t do it all. I am just glad the boys have been able to play outside some most days and been able to rest when they need to. I try to keep a balance between being on the go with them but giving them some downtime. One of the boys tend to get tired pretty quickly so we try to do everything in moderation.

My husband didn’t understand why I kept taking pictures but I do I would blog about our visit and it just was too pretty not to have some pictures to remind us of our visit.

If they have another similar exhibit next year, we will probably visit again. The Atlanta Botanical gardens also has a lighted event during these months but it is more expensive and I just cannot justify the price.

Hope you enjoyed this colorful Chinese Lantern festival with me!

A bientôt!

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