Anderson Farms/Victoria’s Gardens 
13120 Willow Rd., Lakeside. One mile off Highway 67, east. 2-1/2 acres of lighted wonderland. Over 100 life-sized items + $2 hayrides (plus other packages) and 50,000+ lights. Get your Christmas tree while you are there (coupon at their website for 10% off). Nov 21-Dec 24, Dec 26-Jan 4, 2-8 pm.

Chula Vista Downtown Holiday Lights
 Third Ave. & E St. to G St, Dec. 2 to Jan. 1. Dec. 2 evening parade, 6 pm. 
 


Del Mar Fairgrounds Holiday of Lights
 Animated holiday lights. Nov. 27 to Jan. 1, Sun.-Thurs., 5:30-10 pm.; Fri.-Sat., 5:30-11 pm.; $14/vehicle (up to 5 people), $19/van or car (6 or more), $49/bus. 


Festival of Lights at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park Dec. 6-30, 4-8 pm. Lights, crafts and snow. Several larger-than-life light features. This is the last year for the Festival of Lights at the Wild Animal Park which is so sad. However, the Festival will be moved to the San Diego Zoo in 2009. Ages 12 and up $28.50, 3 to 11 $17.50, under 3 free. 


Gaslamp for the Holidays Nov. 26-Jan 1, 5pm-midnight Historic buildings and merchants light up for the holidays.


Mission Bay Parade of Lights 
Dec. 13 Starts at 7 pm. This boat parade of lights begins on Quivira Basin and ends with the lighting of the SeaWorld Sky Tower Tree of Lights and a fireworks display at 9 pm.

Oceanside Parade of Lights Dec. 13, 7-9 pm, Christmas Parade around inner Oceanside Harbor from the Oceanside Yacht Club.


Quail Gardens Annual Garden of Lights 
230 Quail Gardens Dr., Encinitas. 90,000+ lights illuminating the plants and trees. Dec. 11-23, 26-30, 5-9 pm. Different activities nightly. Admission: Adults $10, children (3-12) $3.

San Diego Bay Parade of Lights San Diego Downtown Waterfront. Dec. 14 & Dec. 21, fireworks at 5:30 pm, parade til 9 pm. Starts off at Shelter Island, goes through the harbor and ends at the Navy Carrier Base.

Skyline Church Night of Light 
11330 Campo Rd., La Mesa. Dec. 22-23. Thousands of lights, choir, real snow, Santa, comedian, church services.

Sources: Top Dog Limo Services & San Diego Travel Tips

Halloween in San Diego is something to be proud of. Transplants get it, but many San Diego natives take for granted the ways in which we celebrate this haunted holiday. I personally didn’t realize it until I lived in San Francisco for a number of years. San Francisco celebrates Halloween with a big party that is on the scale of Mardi Gras while the few children that reside there have the “opportunity” to trick-or-treat in the local malls. That is pretty much the extent of the holiday that has the most potential for fun. Many other cities around the country, you will find the same. Parties, trick or treating, but very little skill in the decoration or scare department.

The elaborate embellishing skills of San Diego residents and the history that made for real haunted houses, such as the Whaley House in Old Town, has created a culture that takes Halloween to a whole different level. Haunted houses, both amateur and professional spring up all over this city during the month of October that are truly hard to beat.

Scary stories, horror films and haunted houses, some of the most necessary components to Halloween, I really prefer not to partake in. Particularly, I tend to steer clear of haunted houses after an incident that happened when I was about 10 or 12 years old where I got “lost” from the group in a haunted house. I ended up being surrounded by the “actors” in a gory hospital scene involving disorienting strobe lights, large hypodermic needles and lots of blood. I freaked. One of the girls finally broke character and escorted me out.

But for some strange reason, I was compelled to find a haunted house while in college in San Francisco, I guess missing the abundance of freak out opportunities from back home. The only one I could find was a genuine haunted house, known as the Winchester Mystery House located in San Jose. They do midnight flashlight tours during the month of October. Other than that, there was no haunted anything to be found, not even a converted garage or community center.

However San Diego is loaded with opportunities to scare your soul out of you, both real and constructed, amateur and professional. Here is a listing of things to this season to make your stomach lurch or at least enough to get your fill of Halloween excitement.

Haunted Houses
Haunted Hotel
The Scream Zone at the Del Mar Fairgrounds
The Haunted Trail in Balboa Park
Monster Manor in Mira Mesa: Roger says this is the best one in San Diego
Haunted House at Otay Recreation Center: Many community centers in San Diego do something of this nature. You just might have to do some digging.
Sadly, Frightmare on Market Street is no longer open.
The Birch Aquarium also does the place up scary-like, however they ended their hauntings last weekend.

Close by Haunted Fun
Knott’s Scary Farm: Haunt
Universal Studios: Halloween Horror Nights

Haunted For Real
The Whaley House
Haunted San Diego Ghost Tours
Ghostly Tours in History
There are a number of recorded haunted hotels and houses in San Diego, the listing above only includes those offering tours.

Sadly, since I will be on a plane to NYC on Friday, I feel like I have missed out on a bit of the Halloween fun. No costume, no decorations, only a couple party invites. Next year, with the new house we will probably do Halloween properly.

Creating things and solving puzzles are some of my most favorite things to do in the world. There are often times when I get home and say to Roger (or myself), “I want to make something.” When I was a kid, I would build forts, conduct my own science experiments or use random odds an ends around the house to make something cool like a musical instrument or a toy from recycled objects.

The Reuben H. Fleet has a new exhibit (open until June 2009) called Tinkering. It is the dream exhibit for those like me. There is one area where you can build a marble roller coaster on a peg board using various piping and chutes. In another corner you can build any object that you can think of using any of the supplies that they have. The area is filled with scraps of wood, recycled materials, rubber bands, wires, small motors, batteries, as well as random arts and crafts supplies. Within this area there is also a small workbench with tools like screwdrivers, hammers, nails, saws and a hot glue gun.

This past week they had their first “Science on the Rocks” event, sort of modeled off of the “Culture and Cocktails” events at the San Diego Museum of Art but with a few differences. At “Science on the Rocks” you pay one price ($20) for admission and all you can eat/drink of fancy appetizers and drinks (which included Firehouse on tap, Carl Strauss in bottles, wine and vodka drinks). Compared to paying admission, then paying for each drink. The event went from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Actually we left at 9 p.m with at least half the people still standing around.

One activity that went on through the evening, which Roger and I totally got absorbed in, was the Rube Goldburg chain reactor. It is a device created piece by piece that has a sort of domino effect… think of “Goonies” when Data was opening the gate for Chunk, same sort of thing. It was awesome to work with others thinking creatively. The best part was that no one really shot down anyone else’s ideas. Anything was fair game. Plus with the event being all adults, you never felt that you were taking away any of the fun from the kids.

The next “Science on the Rocks” event will be in January. They haven’t been good about posting event info on the web, but I will let you know when I hear but feel free to email the Fleet yourself to get on their mailing list for future events like this at specialevents@rhfleet.org.