Candy Cane Lane

For the past few years, in the week approaching Christmas, we've made it a tradition to burn a CD of Christmas tunes, bundle up (as much as the LA weather will afford us), grab a peppermint mocha from Starbuck's, and hop in one of the Riggins' rides as they whisk us away (like loving parents taking their children to request presents from Santa at the mall) to LADWP's fantastically amazing Holiday Light Festival at Griffith Park.

This year's excursion was bittersweet because this is the last year we'll be rolling with the Riggins' as they're moving up to the Bay Area in January :-( It was fitting, therefore, that we decided to drive, as the metaphorical keys were passed from Tony to me (Kyle).

Upon arrival to Griffith Park, however, we found signs saying that there would be a 2-hour wait to get through all the traffic to the actual Light Show (probably why we'd never tried doing this on a Saturday before), so we slowly made our way out of the madness as Lisa, Marta and Tony went to work to find a worthy alternate on their Blackberries & iPhones… Lo and behold, the answer that Google, Twitter and Facebook unanimously returned to them was: Cany Cane Lane!

After almost getting sideswiped by a red-light-running driver and watching an SUV be entirely engulfed in flames by the side of the road, we happily got the heck out of Glendale and made our way to Woodland Hills and Candy Cane Lane, a 2 x 2 block of streets where virtually every house in the neighborhood has set up some sort of holiday light madness, complete with blow-up reindeer, mechanized Santas, painted Disney characters, and, of course, a million lights…

We saw the cars lined up right away, so we parked and walked around like kids on Halloween. There were people selling hot chocolate, homemade cookies, and giving away candy canes. Whatever it may have lacked in comparison to the slick and well-produced LADWP version, this made up for in down-home, American-style, holiday neighborhoodliness (yes, you are allowed to invent at least one word around Christmas).

All in all, it was a fine holiday excursion. We'll miss you Marta & Tony, but we promise the tradition will live on!