Well, thanks to this clusterpluck of a year, most of our holiday happies are out the window, as they are for everyone. Our Thanksgiving was a special treat when Edison shut off the electricity to our neighborhood due to high winds and fire danger… ever hear 20,000 people drop the F-bomb simultaneously?
Anyway, we survived, having poached then pan-fried turkey breast. Before you say “why didn’t you barbecue?” let me refer you back to the whole fire danger idea.
So we were especially looking forward to our Friday-after-Thanksgiving tickets to
At $25/person, two people minimum, the four of us (me, Beloved, Mummy and The Boy) we’re actually more expensive than most of the other drive through Christmas experiences I’ve seen around, which seem to top out in the $79 range.
We had passed on the $50 “snack pack for four”: four cups cocoa, a dozen cookies, two further-undescribed bags of “candy” (?? THAT could encompass a LOT of things), a large “buttery popcorn” (yeah, chances it’s ever seen a dairy product…?) and a souvenir bucket.
Also passed on the “park merchandise package”: four masks emblazoned with the event logo, four “holiday themed souvenirs” (and I thought the bag-o-candy was non-specific) and four holiday 3-d glasses (the picture showed they were the cardboard type), all in a souvenir bag. They didn’t specify when you might wish to use the glasses, as there weren’t any 3-d displays. Ah, yes, also for fifty bucks.
We were repeatedly cautioned to drive no faster than 3mph. This would not prove difficult.
I hadn’t set foot in Magic Mountain (other than Hurricane Harbor with the kids when they were young) for easily 20 years, so I was thoroughly confused as to where we were, driving around. I recognized the moldering carcass of Colossus, the Log Jammer, and and couple of other bits (the area where the Spin & Spew was) but otherwise? Eh, time had long passed me by.
The Boy observed there weren’t many people about – and for a park this size, he was right. They had the odd person in costume dancing by themselves mostly, then people with light sabers directing traffic. Because, y’know, we weren’t really on the bumper of the car in front of us.
But the lights were pretty, interspersed with blackness or sparse amounts of decor.
Beloved got a little annoyed with the “snow”. Soap bubbles on your windshield after a windstorm does not make for a clear view – especially when the car in front of you sprays their windshield to wash it.
The lights were all quite pretty but when they say “Holidays” read “Euro-Christian light display with a teeny concession to our Jewish friends”.
All in all it was quite pretty, took about 40 minutes to get through and we decided if, god forbid, we still have to socially distance next year, we’re not laying out another hundred smackers for this.
ExaminingMisadventures 