Super Ultra Magical Winter Lights

While it is possible to email all your friends the cool stuff you saw at the Magical Winter Lights display in Houston, if you have a blog, you can just put it all there, and then it feels like you're putting up a new page in a cool community scrapbook, instead of sending a letter or a few dozen stray files destined to get lost in someones inbox of I-never-ever-delete-emails-ever-even-the-junk-ones-from-Crazy-Tarot-Cats-dot-com or the all-consuming labrynth of someone's phone. I don't even want to talk about Facebook.

This was a journey made on one perfectly warm (70 degree) winter's night, with my little brother and my courageous mother. Said little brother (who answers both to "hey you", "frogger", "frogsauce", "super frog", and "Travis") was also the photographer to this trip, so if you like the photos you can say "hey, thanks, frogsauce", just like I would.

This is one of the first things we saw, and man, look at all these dancing skeleton pirates and their adorable hats. I don't know if I'm scared or completely delighted. They're great. Almost as great as that dragon. Almost. Wish I could give that dragon a high five for being awesome.

They divided all the lights up into countries. But the best country of all is, of course DINOSAUR KINGDOM. Everything else pales in comparison, and as such, I basically have no comment on these other much less impressive countries. I promise you, pictures from Dinosaur Kingdom are coming. I promise.

This Christmas tree was gigantic. REALLY, really gigantic. It was a dinosaur size tree. You can't tell in this picture, so just take my word for it. Really nice tree.

That's just the face my brother makes all the time.

It may seem at first like this is the best place in the world for adorable family photos, but then you realize that it's just a place of overwhelming blinding lights, cursing you with adorable family photos that are going to be either blurry or shadowed. Unless you actually know how to work your camera in difficult lighting situations, in which case, bah humbug to you, you're making the rest of us look bad.

Even super adorable Chinese dragons are not immune to the awesome power of the blinding lights. This dragon did a lot of wiggling around, which is what I imagine dragons do best.

They had a section devoted to all the Chinese zodiac animals (yeah, now we're gettin' to the good stuff!), and all of them - I really gotta say - looked pretty crazy, bizarre, and/or terrifying. This snake was really one of the more elegant and poised ones, and I was impressed with the way they handled her lack of arms, by making it sort of look like she has arms, but also not entirely like she has arms. It's the perfect mystery.

Now, each animal had it's own statue like this snake, and each animal also had a Photographic Opportunity statue, which I thought was kind of overdoing it a little, but oh well. The Photographic Opportunity statues were just as weird, and actually probably much creepier, because it looked like they were all very happy to devour many innocent victims. Just like the people who ask you for money so you can get in the parking lot.

This is my "please, help me" face, which is only appropriate.

I wasn't actually born in the year of the snake, but I appreciated the snake's poise and elegance so much, I got my picture with her anyway. Just look at that smile. Who wouldn't smile back.

Just look at those eyes.

I really don't think anybody could help but be entranced by such dazzling beauty. I sure couldn't.

You can see a T-rex in the back of this picture, which is awesome. My mother is awesome, too, of course. She probably didn't even pay me to say that.

Now we're getting to the REALLY good part: DINOSAUR KINGDOM. It really is called Dinosaur Kingdom. There's a big sign for it. This is how you know it is THE best part of the show. I assure you that I am very, very biased and that this dinosaur section is 100% the reason I wanted to go here in the first place. Just let me just say the words: DINOSAUR CHRISTMAS. That's synonymous with BEST POSSIBLE CHRISTMAS. Person who tipped me off that there were dinosaur lights here: this entire post is your fault. Also, I love you.

I'M HIGH FIVING THE DINOSAUR

HIGH FIVE HIGH FIVE HIGH FIVE

Spinosaurus, my hero of Christmas. May you be remembered forever.

"are we done yet are we done yet can we go now are we done yet"

I thought these tiger-striped dinosaurs were beautiful.

Then again, I think all dinosaurs are beautiful.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank whoever might be responsible for including Dinosaur Kingdom in this light show. You had Asia, Europe, America, etc, and somewhat inexplicably, Dinosaur Kingdom. Thank you so much. Your fellow dinosaur fanatics are cheering for your success. You could've had Penguin Ice City instead. Maybe do that next year. With an expanded Dinosaur Kingdom.

It really wouldn't be Christmas if you didn't take a family picture in front of the very tall cat.

We were all intrigued by the apparent drama of this scene. What's going on here? They all seem so busy talking about each other's snakes, wrangling snakes, even trying to pet/steal each other's snakes?? Really I think I just enjoyed the sheer number of snakes.

This picture didn't turn out crisp, but these camels were beautiful. The African Animal Kingdom, though not as expansive as Dinosaur Kingdom, was almost as lovely and dearly appreciated.

They almost look like they're friends!

Hard to go wrong with a blue antelope, that's my opinion.

Obligatory Sydney Opera House. Can't go without one of those, either.

Now, we get to what is definitely my favorite part of the show outside Dinosaur Kingdom. A thing really worth saying. A creature that may just be haunting my dreams and nightmares even long after Christmas.

THIS WHALE. It is both beautiful and terrifying. Stare deep into it's bulging eye! Look closely at it's rows of pointy teeth! It's powerful fins and impressive size! I see no mercy in its cold expression. It's incredible. I love it. Perfection is known to be this whale.

LOOK AT IT

To whatever artist is responsible for this beautiful monstrosity: I hope you sleep well at night.

These giraffes, on the other hand, are not terrifying, just super cute.

Ok, so, I said the whale was my favorite; I may have lied. Because THIS NEXT THING is my favorite:

The picture doesn't do it justice. It's humongous, and it's beautiful, there are about five birds on it, it's so elegant and so beautifully done, and it will haunt only your dreams and not your nightmares. It's really gorgeous. And birds being classified as dinosaurs anyway, it's pretty much a giant elegant dinosaur painting that glows. You can't beat it.

Obligatory America.

Obligatory pretty light tunnel.

Obligatory pretty landscape featuring Jesus.

THIS THING. Which really was a wonder to behold. It renders me speechless. And will be eagerly sent to all our international friends, I'm really quite sure.

My mom is a wicked gun-slinging cowboy. But we knew that already.

So these...."arctic people + dogs"...look like if you crossed an extremely old museum display with a funny old sitcom, but ok. And I thought that whale was creepy.

This army of color-changing eye-less and arm-less penguins was also kind of creepy. But also kind of cool. I could never quite decide.

 I am not sure what is going on with that bear on the right.

Nor am I sure what is going on with these penguins' flippers, but we were happy to imitate them anyway.

And that's that. The whole thing was an overwhelming experience that left me a little dazed and befuddled and with nightmares about a toothy whale, but it was all fun to see, and I'm grateful to my familial companions for allowing me to drag them there. There's a lot of lights, and there's a lot of accidentally standing in the way of people's Photographic Opportunities, and there are a lot of dinosaurs, so basically, it's everything you could ever ask for out of a fancy Christmas light show.

Thank you, and see you again, when I make more posts about birds (who you can just think of as dinosaurs).