a peek inside the fishbowl

Last night was my first time visiting the Magic of Lights at Wesley Clover Parks in Kanata (Ottawa)! I wasn’t sure what to expect, but you know what, I can see why people have been swept away by it.

Magic of Lights is a winding 2km stretch of road at Wesley Clover that has been decked out with a crazy amount of Christmas lights and displays. Some are simple (think, strands of lights strung around trees and along fences) and others are big, animated, or both. There’s a charitable component as well. Last year, Magic of Lights raised more than $47,000 for the Ottawa Senators Foundation and they’re partnering with them again this year too.

The idea is to pack up a car of people and drive the route, but I actually had the opportunity to walk it (!) because I was accompanying someone who was shooting video footage. This means I had a LOT of time to watch cars go by and think about what I was looking at. What I saw was happy faces of all ages. It wasn’t just cars full of families either, like I expected. There were young couples and old, parents with babies, senior doubles (a double date?), people with their pets, families with their teenagers hanging out the window, small buses with people from hospitals and care facilities (ROAD TRIIIIIP!) and even a ParaTranspo bus. Some people were singing Christmas carols, others were blasting music. I got waved at A LOT while on the side of the road there. I waved back. It did my heart good.

Magic of Lights is divided into different zones with different themes, which is fun to observe. Some of these themed areas include: holidays from around the world, sports, fairy tales, Candyland, Three Little Pigs, what appeared to be Northern animals, and construction crew (? diggers and such, for realz). I really liked the “Twelve days of Christmas” zone as it was particularly clever and beautiful. And yes, the displays included each verse of the song, including 12 drummers drumming!

This is what it looks like as you drive into that area:

Can you guess what this light display represents?

(It’s swans a’swimming!) Here are some maids a’ milking:

And some lords a’leaping. Watch ’em leap! They are LARGE. This little video clip doesn’t quite do it justice:

The snow fell gently, and the blanket of white made everything glow so beautifully.

Some of the displays are animated, which is pretty neat: LED-Santa on a motorcycle doing a stunt, a fire-breathing dragon, or an elf playing with a basketball. At the very end there’s an animated tunnel of lights, which is pretty cool.

I’m told that the displays are bigger and better than last year, and that there are more of them, but I can’t comment on that because I didn’t see it last year. Some people online have complained that the route is too short so I recommend you take it slow and savour that twinkle as long as you can (because I don’t think you can go through twice)!

Next time I’ll definitely bring the kids, as well as a thermos of hot chocolate or two, and make sure the Christmas tunes are playing in the car! I think if you’re looking for something festive, easy, and gentle to do for the whole family, this is a great option for folks in the Ottawa area. I do kind of wish that visitors had the option of walking through instead of driving. The parking lot there is big enough to accommodate the handful of families who might want to do it this way. We walked the route once and drove through it as well, and it was pretty amazing to see it on foot (even though my toes were froze by the time we were done).

Magic of Lights is at the Wesley Clover Parks Campground (411 Corkstown Road in Kanata) and is open from dusk until 10 p.m. until January 6, 2018. Corkstown Road can be accessed from Moodie Drive or the March Road exits from the 417, west of the junction of the 416 and 417 highways. If you buy your tickets online at magicoflights.com/ottawa it’s a little cheaper (and also more convenient in my books).

Have you been yet? I’d love to hear your review.