THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 3, 1994 TAG: 9412030271
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
With three adults and two children, ages 5 and 2, our car edged in line to enter the Garden of Lights.
In the pitch night, the slow-moving column wound through a shining wonderland of the Norfolk Botanical Garden.
The half-hour panorama was a continuing delight.
Nobody lamented the leisurely pace that lets visitors view vivid sights woven from 13 corded miles of 150,000 rainbowed lights.
It took two months to string them into nursery-rhyme scenes by Carpenter Decorating Company and George Mosca of Mosca Design.
At $7 a car, you can't beat it as a holiday entree for families:
Two toy-like Nutcracker Soldiers, 22 feet tall, guarding a candyland of star bursts, scintillating lollipops, and an aisle of candy canes.
A towering, shining waterfall cascading 20 feet.
A blizzard of twinkling snowflakes as big as manhole covers.
A broad-fronted, blazing 20-foot-high edible-looking Gingerbread House.
Mushrooms, huge footstools on which dazzling butterflies light.
A gigantic Contrary Mary bending to pour from a watering can a stream to nurture a rose sprouting 11 feet, over and over.
Amid gleaming corn shucks, flaming pumpkins, large as harvest suns, and an orchard of rosy-glowing apples, each big enough to fill a bushel basket.
A 14-foot tall Frosty the Snowman, beckoning.
A 12-foot red-coated Santa, all aglow, commanding from his sleigh, reindeer kicking off skyward, the lead one with a bright red nose.
(When children kept asking, ``Where's Rudolph?'' the Botanical Garden's electrician supplied the finishing touch, a red bulb.)
The extravaganza will raise $75,000 for the nonprofit Botanical Garden and put $25,000 in amusement taxes into municipal coffers.
The scenes are lighted from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
When our car finished the trail, the 2-year-old had a question.
``Kin we go agin?'' she asked. ILLUSTRATION: MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
This Nutcracker Soldier is one of the wonders awaiting visitors to
Norfolk Botanical Garden.
by CNB