The Christmas Season has begun! Going to Bright Nights in Springfield MA (3 miles of smiles)

What a night it has been! Now that's it's after Thanksgiving, I can actually talk about Christmas! 🤣 Tonight was a bit of a late one to go to Bright Nights, because we almost didn't go due to how tired my mom was. But luckily they keep the gates (and the snack bar/merry-go-round) open until 11PM on Fridays/Saturdays/Holidays this year instead of the 9:30PM (as legally required under the former MA curfew) last year, when we COULDN'T make it. I remember getting out of TJMaxx in Hadley MA at 8PM and due to having to pick someone else up, it clearly didn't work out. However, on 12/23/2020, I did go to Bright Nights with Julie in what ended up being our latest outing EVER, until 10:30PM! I loved it, and felt like a teenager that night because 1) I was out late, and 2) we were (unintentionally) breaking the curfew due to traffic! (We also broke the travel order by going to Enfield CT to get gas, but not really, because getting gas qualified as essential.) For those who are not familiar with the former curfew, basically from ~Nov 13, 2020-Jan 23, 2021, Massachusetts had a state curfew due to rising COVID-19 cases as a prevention measure, where non-essential businesses were legally required to close by 9:30PM every night, although our local game/mini golf hall Prodigy did close at 10PM during this time, and people were supposed to be home by 10PM, and there was a stay-at-home order between 10PM-5AM every night unless out for essential activities, like grocery shopping, but the local grocery stores all close by that time anyways, so it didn't make sense. Okay, I'm dragging along, so let's fast forward from 2020 to 2021.

Tonight, we didn't leave the house until 9:15PM, which at this time last year would only leave 15 minutes to do things! But with no curfew planned for the foreseeable future, Massachusetts is back to being open 24/7. We didn't get there until about 10PM, but for the first time, due to our very late arrival and early in the season visit, there was NO traffic!

That's a rare occurrence at Bright Nights! The lights were nice, but harder to get photos and videos from due to me having to sit in the back of the car, but it was still nice with the Bright Nights radio station at 100.7 FM playing Christmas music, but their station doesn't have a very strong signal. 

Here are some pics and vids: (quality warning: nighttime pics/vids aren't exactly the clearest, some shots may be blurry)

HOWEVER, for the first time, we actually went to the roadside attractions and rode the merry-go-round and got hot chocolate and free pretzels from the snack shack. It was good, but I had to miss out on the pretzel because it (most likely) wasn't gluten free. 😔 The merry-go-round was so fun, but it was freezing out and while holding the bar and filming at the same time, it was cold! 🥶 Once we got to hot chocolate, it warmed me up and was very good! 😋