This past weekend was the first time in a very loooooong stretch of weekends that we had absolutely nothing planned. Zero. The 2 boxes of our calendar were blank. September and October always seem to go by in a blur with birthday parties and Halloween events, so to have a free weekend was really unusual for us. After puttering around the house all morning doing chores and baking cookies, I decided we needed to get out and do something fun. You know how I love to surprise the kids with impromptu adventures 🙂

So, Saturday night we headed to “WonderLights Christmas in Ohio” in Heath, OH at the National Trail Raceway. It’s been advertised all over the radio and internet touting 1 million LED lights all synchronized to music and almost 2 miles of drive-thru lights. Admission is $7 per person, or $30 for a car load (maximum 7 people). Not cheap, but not terrible either, especially since you stay in your car the entire time, so there’s no chance of the kids begging for a $5 cup of hot chocolate or $15 light up spinning toy from a gift shop. Big thumbs up for staying in the car!

At first glance, this place was incredible. Lights everywhere and the synchronization was impeccable. We tuned our radio to the specified station and one of the first songs was a favorite Trans Siberian Orchestra carol ~ this adventure was off to a great start! We drove through tunnels of lights and watched Christmas trees blink to the songs…..but that was pretty much the extent of the animation – LOTS of flashing lights. The Christmas songs on the radio are what kept my attention, but as for the kiddos, they were bored about 10 minutes into it. We could only go as fast as the car in front of us, so the display seemed to drag on and on.

Overall, it was a fun thing to do on a Saturday night, but would I recommend driving 45 minutes to get there and spend $30 on it?? Unfortunately, no. A display half as long and half as expensive would have been plenty. Everyone enjoyed it, but it’s not something we will go to again.