The Thirty Dollar Hay Ride

A few weeks ago we went to Christmas Town here in Bakersfield and just around the corner from us in a big field by a park by the high school. I had heard of Christmas Town before and seen stories about it on the news but since it was clear across town last year it was not high on our list of things to do. Meaning the only thing on our list because we really don't do a lot of Christmas related activities or any activities for that matter. We don't even buy a Christmas tree.

Anyway, we had seen all the lights while driving by one night and could see a big lit up tree and a huge slide type thing out there in the field and thought what the heck, let's check it out the next time Keith is home and actually awake in the evening. I looked at the website online and saw that they had ice skating, 'sledding' down the huge slide, a kids area with of course a visit with Santa, and a hay ride. We almost didn't go after seeing the prices, $17.00 each for adults and $15.00 for kids and seniors. We of course went for the senior price.

The displays were pretty impressive for something that was set up in a field, dozens and dozens of lit up trees and little wood buildings that I thought would have been a lot more fun if they'd had some kind of window displays or peeks into what was supposed to be going on in the buildings, like the elf laundromat, but they were just the outsides of the buildings.

More lights and the ice skating rink, which was included in the price of admission and hey, it better be at those prices! They had skates to use but that was not something we wanted to try since we didn't want to be laid up for weeks with broken tail bones. I've only been ice skating once in my life and it was terrifying.

We went early so there weren't a lot of people yet and got right in line for the hay ride, which was fun, lots and lots of light displays on a track that went around the whole field, then crossed through the middle of the town where we got 'snowed' on by some kind of synthetic melting snow.

The huge tree in the middle of the town was synchronized with music, so that was kind of fun to watch for a minute. We didn't go down the sledding slide, again not wanting to hurt our old brittle bones, so after the hay ride and seeing all the lights we were pretty much done.

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I guess if you had small kids this would be a fun but incredibly expensive outing for them, but for us it really was a waste of money and not something we would ever do again. I'd much rather go see the lights at CALM, the California Living Museum because at least the money charged there goes to maintain the zoo and animals. I have no idea who put on this Christmas Town thing, but I don't think it was for charity, just another way to make a buck off of Christmas like everyone else does. Including me, I sold quite a bit of Christmas tags and cards in my shop this year.