Last summer my little family and I were on a late evening walk. We were enjoying the warm and quiet evening when all of a sudden I swore I saw what looked like a UFO in the sky. It was bigger than a star or an airplane and moving steadily across the night sky. As we walked on, I saw another floating light, and then another joining that one in an arc across the sky. Over the half an hour walk we ended up seeing about 25 of these lights fly across the sky. They were flickering, so we knew they were a lantern of some type. They were so high and were going so far. It totally blew our mind and was so much fun watching them, wondering what they were and where they were coming from.

Come to find out, they must have been sky lanterns. We always said we should get some just for fun but I forgot about them. That is, until I read a friend’s blog post about them and was like, “Yippee! What a fun gift idea for John!” A quick jaunt to amazon.com and I had a fun gift that would bring us some holiday memories. (Christmas eve and New Years)

My fingers were freezing and I was juggling camera and lighting duty, but here’s a little peek into our lantern flying Christmas night. I don’t know what it is about these things, but they are AWESOME. There’s just something so beautiful about a lit paper lantern and then to watch it fly away, it’s just super cool.

These photos aren’t the best, but I had to try.

This photo of John is way blurry but it captures the wonder of John’s face as he let go of his first lantern. He loved his gift! Yay! We can’t wait to light some during the summer so we can enjoy them without dancing around freezing.

PS They are biodegradable too, so no guilt when releasing them, unlike latex and mylar balloons.

More Christmas fun to come on the blog soon. I can’t wait to dig into all the photos and video we captured from our awesome weekend. Hope you all had a great time too!