On Friday the 12th, we went to the "Holiday Nights, Garden Lights" display at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  It was so amazing and beautiful.  Alan hasn't been in much of a holiday mood this year - totally understandably - and said he wasn't in the mood to go whenever I brought it up, despite being very enthusiastic when he first heard about it, before the sad events of November 16.  I thought it would be good for him to get out and do something, though, so I kind of insisted and he went along with it.  I'm happy to report that he had a fabulous time.  The whole time we were there, he kept talking about how beautiful the display was and he mentioned at least a dozen times during the subsequent weekend how much he'd enjoyed it and how glad he was that we went.

I think it helped his mood that the decorations were not all Christmas-themed.  They had Christmas trees, of course, but the other decorations were not Santas, elves, candy canes and reindeer.  There were a lot of animals - dragonflies, ladybugs, bumblebees, frogs - and just decorative things.  One forest area that you walk through on a bridge had abstract designs hanging up in the trees that to me were evocative of Van Gogh's Starry Night, but they weren't only blue and yellow; they were red, purple, orange, a spectrum of glimmering loveliness.

Here are some pictures, but they do not do justice to the array.  I forgot my DSLR and had to use my iPhone.  I realized that I'd forgotten my camera just before we got on the highway, but didn't want to turn around for it because the holiday light display is a big deal (I noticed when I linked to the ABG website that it's sold out tonight and you only need go if you've pre-purchased tickets) and with rush-hour traffic, we are about 45 minutes away.  This notion was confirmed after we'd been there about an hour, when we were walking along the bridge under the Starry Night decorations, which at one point runs parallel to the driveway/entrance to the gardens, and traffic was backed up all the way up the drive and as far down Piedmont Road as we could see through the trees.

Snowflakes, not the Starry Night decorations.  I realized I didn't even take any pictures of those; I guess I was too busy staring upward with mouth agape.

Bullfrog in lily pond

This was a unicorn but he had wings like
 Pegasus, so we decided he was a unipeg.

Gaia in lights.  If you look closely at her hand, you
will see that she is a fountain feeding a lovely lake.

Pretty butterfly.  Behind her was a kiosk to purchase
hot apple cider or hot chocolate.  Chocolate FTW!