Ladysmith Christmas Light Up

Report by Simone R.

How to get there?

Ladysmith is a little town 20 driving minutes away from Nanaimo. It is famous for its lavish Christmas decoration and the event, where it is lighted up. VIU offers a ride to this event every year. It costs 10 CAD including the ride and hot chocolate.
The bus started around 5 pm from the university and after a 20 minute drive, we arrived in Ladysmith. However, there were no lights, the streets were crowded but dark and no decoration was lit up. So we started walking around and had a look at the first street, which was closed for traffic, because of the light up. At 6:30 pm, suddenly every one screamed at all lights went on. Now you could see the awesome decorations. Every house had lights around it and the trees and everything was decorated with lights! It was so nice!

Christmas Parade in Ladysmith

15 minutes later, the Christmas parade started. Honestly, it was a little bit weird to scream “Merry Christmas” at the end of November, although you got into the Christmas mood – which was fun. The parade itself was not as spectacular as expected. Compared to a German parade, no candy was thrown and there was hardly any music. Instead, there were a lot of promotion cars, which had a string of lights on its roof.  People in the car were waving and screaming “Merry Christmas”.  There were a lot of trucks with lots of lights on it and some clubs, like the Nanaimo ice hockey and the Ladysmith sports clubs. The cars were all lit up, which was nice to watch, but that’s it. The parade took approximately one hour. After that, everyone walked down the first street.

Fireworks before Christmas

So we followed the crowd. We knew there should be big fireworks, but because it was raining sometimes, we were not sure, if it took place. However, as we were standing and waiting for anything to happen, a loud noise could be heard and we knew the fireworks would start soon. They were awesome fireworks, which took at least 15 minutes. I haven’t seen such beautiful fireworks in ages!
After this, we walked up to the bus and drove back to VIU. I really liked the Ladysmith light up. The parade was kind of weird, but still interesting to watch and the fireworks were just amazing! I really recommend this event to everyone, because it is such a contrast to Germany and interesting to see!