If you are like me and you love Christmas, you surely love the Christmas lights too!
For those who know Illinois, the place to be for Christmas lights is the Lincoln Zoo in Chicago, which offers every year music and lights show.
Very beautiful and fun for young and grown-ups. This event is totally free. Yay! But like many events in Chicago, it is always so overcrowded.
But fortunately for Christmas lights and nature lovers, there is an alternative:

Illumination of the Morton Arboretum.

Located just outside of Chicago, in Lisle, Illinois, the Arboretum is a public garden but also an outdoor museum, a herbarium, research center, and a library.
Covering almost 7-kilometer square the garden has more than 4000 different plant species, among these trees, plants, and flowers but also restored prairies
(one of the first in the Midwest). The illumination is perfectly synchronized with the light shows, which are located in different places in the garden and different landscapes.
Trees, vegetation, ponds, art installations come alive and dance around you, everything around you is taking part in the festive celebration and the enchanted public can also dance and hug the trees! Wherever you are looking there are movements and every few meters the scenery changes in accordance with the change of the species. Seasonal music, bonfire, hot drinks, and roasted marshmallows to make s’mores can help to stay warm and feel the Christmas spirit!

The park is big enough to not be overcrowded, even more, if you go during a weekday around 8 pm. This really gives you the opportunity to enjoy each show and take
the time strolling inside the woods of this wonderland. Different parts of the park are led to different lights and music. The scenery changes constantly in line with the
landscape. The unique atmosphere will catch your attention from start to end. The quality of the illuminations is also a bit higher than the Lincoln Zoo and seeks to
highlight the nature rather than look in the classic Christmas imagery.

Unlike the Lincoln Zoo lights, illumination at the Morton Arboretum is not free but the experience is really worth it, and it is a good way to help to maintain the arboretum which
is such a vital structure for our future, environment, and culture. Don’t get me wrong I love the Lincoln Zoo Lights, but I really think this illumination
at the Morton Arboretum is underrated….. judge by yourself 🙂