Zoo Lights at Oakland Zoo

Every December Oakland Zoo lights up the night in a festive way with its Zoo Lights display. We haven't made it there in the past but this year it happened to appear as an activity on our advent calendar. So one night last week we headed off to the zoo after dark and took in the spectacle of lights.

Lola loved the colorful lights

Most of the animals that live in the parts of the zoo with the lights display were fast asleep in their enclosures. There were, however, plenty of animals made out of lights to see: camels, bears, giraffes, birds, even a few festive reindeer.

Camel lights

Elves and reindeer

Glowing grizzly

Giraffe family

Flock of parrots

Ostriches

Hissss...

With the kids eager to move on and see as much as possible it was a little tricky to get good shots of a lot of the lights. A tripod might've come in handy too! Sometimes though the messed up lighting shots look pretty cool. I quite like this one below. It's actually supposed to look like the volcano shot underneath it in case you're wondering what it is.

Blurry lights

Volcano lights

Throughout the zoo there were many trees with trunks and branches wrapped entirely in lights. Some just one colour, some patterned with two colours and others a rainbow of lights.

Gold and silver

Giant silver tree at the entrance to the amusements area

The look on Ava's face says it all 

Colourful tree

It wouldn't be a Christmas attraction without Santa on site. The man in red was there to meet the kids and listen to their Christmas wishes. And pose for a photo or two, of course.

The girls with Santa

The highlight of the night for the girls was the ride on the Outback Express train. We were lucky to get our tickets just in time and made it onto the last train ride of the night. The train took us through the Australian Outback section of the zoo where inquisitive wallaroos and emus hung around close to the tracks much to the delight of the passengers.

Here comes the train

The girls really enjoyed the lights display at the zoo, especially the train ride. We just might have to make it an annual tradition.

Zoo Lights at Oakland Zoo runs nightly through to January 5th so there's still time to catch the colorful display before it closes for another year.