EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — Lights on the Lake returned bringing thousands of twinkling lights, festive music and a new round of holiday cheer to kick off the season.<\/p>\n
Cold temperatures didn\u2019t stop families from packing the park for opening night. The celebration opened with a Canine Paw-rade as costumed dogs and their owners walked the route to cheering crowds. \u201cWe love anything that involves our dogs,\u201d one participant said. \u201cIt\u2019s always great to have events where we can bring our pets with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Highlights of the event included the official lighting ceremony and the moment attendees counted down to the \u201cflipping of the switch,\u201d watching the park illuminate with thousands of lights. Live music, food trucks and vendors added to the festive atmosphere.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love everything Christmas,\u201d Castillo family said. \u201cWe\u2019re excited for the lights and to share the Christmas spirit with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Santa Claus himself had the honor of flipping the switch as the crowd counted down. <\/p>\n
Organizers say they took feedback from last year and made this this year\u2019s event even better \u201cWe\u2019ve expanded to include a drive-through along the whole loop road,\u201d Tim Fulton Parks and recreation director for El Paso\u00a0said. \u201cWe\u2019re also going to have a drone show.\u201d<\/p>\n
The drone display lit up the night sky with colorful animations and holiday-themed characters. <\/p>\n
Many families said the event offered a much-needed moment of unity. Lights on the Lake runs through Jan. 6 at Ascarate Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — Lights on the Lake returned bringing thousands of twinkling lights, festive music and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-79293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}