Christmas Spirit: The Lights of Botanica

I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars

and open a jar of it every month.

--Harlan Miller, author

(From my email devotional from Guideposts.)

Every year for the past several years, we'd say we were going to Botanica: The Wichita Gardens to see their Christmas display. This year, we actually did it!

It was worth the wait.

 

I love going to Botanica during the growing season. (See my posts here and here.)

 

But seeing Botanica dressed in holiday finery was spectacular, too ... just in a different way.

There are more than a million lights. That's a lot of lights for anybody, but especially for a farm couple who puts up a couple of red and green spotlights to give their farmhouse some holiday cheer. (In our defense, not many people drive by on our county line road!)

 

We were in Wichita so Randy could attend a co-op board of directors training the next day. It was a perfect night. It was chilly enough to make it feel like the holidays, but not so cold that we wanted to rush through the experience.

Just in case we needed a little taste of home, there was a windmill. All dressed in red, it was just a little bit fancier than our farm ones!

Jill wants to meet us there next year, and I'm ready. I would love to see the lights through the eyes of two little girls.

This big girl was mighty impressed!

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world,

 and behold, everything is softer

 and more beautiful. 

~Norman Vincent Peale

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away.
~Eva Logue