Christmas Light Date Night!

This weekend was my weekend on days at work, which means I hadn't really seen Nate since Thursday afternoon, so we planned a fun and cheap date night for us after my shift on Sunday! The inspiration came from my cousin Andrea, (who in turn got her idea from her friend), but we decided to call ours Cheesy Christmas Date Night!

We adjusted the rules to suit us (there was absolutely no way I was getting out of the car when it felt close to -15 outside!) , so our rules were:

1. You must wear pajamas (neither of us have Christmasy ones anymore, we'll work on that for next year!)

2. You must listen to Christmas music in the car (I dropped the ball on this one I forgot the CDs! But the radio was playing a lot of Christmas music so it counts!)

3. You must stop for hot chocolate (or another hot beverage!)

4. Cell phones are off limits!

5. You must drive around and look at Christmas lights!

 I finished work at 7 (I think I gave the fastest, most thorough report in the history of nursing) and then raced home as fast as the still snowy and icy roads would allow. I must admit, this was the easiest date night I have ever gotten ready for... I took my clip out of my hair, put on pajamas... and voila, ready!

We hopped in the car and plotted our route. Our original plan had been to visit a house in Port Stanley that has an insane amount of lights, but we were cutting it for time (he closes his yard off at 9:00) so we decided to just try some local neighborhoods! Like any good Canadian road trip, the first stop was Timmie's for a delicious cup of Gingerbread White Hot Chocolate.

 We didn't really see any spectacular displays, but we had a really nice time just driving around and chatting with each other! With our crazy schedules we often go days without really seeing one another, so it was such a blessing to be able to just spend an hour with nothing to do but talk to each other and enjoy each others company!

After driving through Byron, out to the country to the Plunkett Estate (which we thought would be a sure bet for Christmas lights... however they didn't have a SINGLE light!), through Lambeth, and then Old South, we finally decided to go downtown to go somewhere we knew there would be a beautiful display: Victoria Park. It's one of my favourite things about Christmas time in London, on my last shift of a set I drive the extra five minutes to go downtown just so I can drive past it.

We hardly took any pictures because we were too busy talking, but I did manage to snap this one waiting for a light to change!

We're so very blessed to have the chance to spend time with each other during this busy season and we enjoyed every minute of it! Date night comes in all forms, and doesn't have to involve getting dressed up and spending a lot of money... I think I had more fun in my pajamas with hot cocoa than I've had on a date in a long time! This is a fun Christmas tradition we will be doing again!