VanDusen Botanical Garden’s annual Festival Of Lights opens this Friday, December 9th, and we’re all kinds of stoked for it. Along with Tchaikovsky, Bing Crosby, Dylan Thomas, and repeated viewings of A Christmas Carol and It’s A Wonderful Life, nothing gets us more in the mood for Christmas than walking – thickly toqued, well-scarved, heavily coated, and serenaded by a choir – around the magically transformed gardens, hot chocolates in gloved hands.

The food, should you go on an empty stomach (and you should), can be wonderfully indulgent. While Shaughnessy Restaurant and the brand new Truffles Cafe have lots of grown-up options in addition to treats and drinks, you should save room for hot waffles, pizza, and mini-doughnuts from the food carts dotting the surrounds (they’re 27% of the reason why we go every year).

For kids, well…nothing beats Santa. He’s there in his “living room” every evening until the night of the 24th, when he has to take off on business. There’s also Svend and Jens (two Scandinavian gnomes with penchants for mischief), the gingerbread wood, Candy Cane Lane, model trains, and so on. I mean, what’s not to love? It’s a gabillion freakin’ Christmas lights, all in one place, blinking and shining and twinkling. Some of them are even programmed to dance to the Christmas tunes blaring over the loudspeakers. Awesome.

What’s different this year? Hopefully nothing, as it was picture perfect last year (it snowed very gently on the night we went). One thing will be very different, however, and that will be how everyone enters and exits. For the first time, we’ll all come and go through the brand new, state-of-the-art “Living Building” Visitor Centre. They were exhibiting plans for it during last year’s FoL, and it looked really cool. We’ve yet to check it out, but the Garden’s website has a silhouette rendering of it, and if you want proper spoilers on how sweet it looks, check out these shots here. Either way, it’ll sure beat coming in through the parking lot gates.

The Festival of Lights runs every evening (except for Christmas Day, when the Garden is closed) from Friday, December 9th through to January 2nd. The gate opens at 4:30pm and shuts at 9 pm. If the weather’s super sketchy (like, there’s a snowstorm or a hurricane), call 604-257-8665 to see if they’ve shuttered for the night.

Score your tickets at the Gate.

Adult (19-65): $13.50
Senior (65+): $10
Youth (13-18):$10
Child (3-12): $7.50
Children under age 3 are free
Family (2 adults + 2 children age 18 and under): $31

VanDusen Botanical Garden is located at the corner of Oak Street and W.37th Avenue in Vancouver. Visit the Festival of Lights page here for more details and video. Plenty of shots below. We hope to see you there.

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