Valley light displays offer family-friendly, mostly free, holiday fun

YOUNGSTOWN

Local residents can enjoy a multitude of spectacular outdoor holiday light exhibits, many of them featuring FM radio music, at public parks and private residences, without leaving the Mahoning Valley.

All of the displays can be viewed for free, except the million-light Firestone Park drive-through display in Columbiana; and all can be viewed from a motor vehicle, except for the “Electric Garden,” which requires a stroll through Mill Creek MetroParks’ Fellows Riverside Gardens.

Details concerning the displays can be found at youngstownlive.com by clicking on “holiday lights.”

That website, which also lists holiday events, is sponsored by the Mahoning County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“Put the family in the car. Go take a ride and enjoy it,” Linda Macala, CVB director, said of the variety of seasonal light displays.

Sponsored by the Columbiana Area Chamber of Commerce, the “Joy of Christmas” exhibit at Firestone Park, 338 E. Park Ave., calls itself “northeastern Ohio’s biggest and best light display” and features 70 animated light scenes.

In addition to the lights, it features more than 100 decorated gingerbread houses, Christmas crafts, face-painting, a nightly coloring contest and photo opportunities with Santa.

Mill Creek’s “Electric Garden” display, which is featured Saturdays and Sundays through Dec. 18, has thousands of twinkling lights, together with an exhibit of decorated and lighted Christmas trees, reflecting a variety of themes, inside the Davis Center, 123 McKinley Ave.

“This is becoming kind of a staple event for a lot of families to bring their children and grandchildren here to go through the gardens and experience the different trees and the flowers and the gift shop and the cafe,” said Andrew Pratt, gardens director.

This year, it drew some 3,500 visitors during its first weekend, he said.

Boardman Park, 375 Boardman-Poland Road, features 15 elaborate light displays in a drive-through setting from 6 to 10 nightly through Jan. 14.

Read more about these and other displays in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.