Hi friends, welcome back! This past Friday we made our annual visit to Croton-On-Hudson for the Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze. We usually make a night out of it and grab dinner in Sleepy Hollow beforehand, but Mother Nature thwarted our plans. There was a strong line of storms and torrential downpours that were supposed to coincide with our timed entry tickets. The event communicated earlier in the day we could either come later once the storms had cleared, or we could exchange our tickets for a different night. All the subsequent weekends were sold out so exchanging our tickets wasn’t really an option. As chief meteorologist for our family, I suggested we hang tight and wait out the storm. We drove through the worst of the storm and by the time we got there, the rain had stopped and it was a perfect fall night. I put Violet in her carrier, and we were off to see the pumpkins!
This is our fifth time coming but every year feels new because they are always expanding the decorations and rearranging them. It’s nostalgic to see the same displays and exciting to discover what’s new.
Per the website this is the 22nd year of the event and it features over 7,000 Jack O’ Lanterns and 23 displays. The Jack O’ Lanterns are a mix of real and fake ones. There’s also a customized soundtrack and synchronized lighting throughout the walk to really enhance the experience.
You can upgrade your tickets to include a drink at the Headless Horseman’s Hideaway or enjoy some bites at the Gourd & Goblet Tavern. They always look pretty popular when we walk by, but we haven’t tried it out yet.
New this year was “Creature Feature Forest” featuring Frankenstein, Dracula, and other monsters.
This Big Book of Fables display was also new and featured storybook characters such as Humpty Dumpty, the Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, and The Cow Jumping Over the Moon. It was fun to try and figure out what each one was.
Violet’s favorite display was this Punk N’ Spice DJ pumpkin. She was dancing and clapping along with the skeletons to the beat. I think she thought it was a teddy bear, but she talked about it the whole drive home. She had a blast and kept saying “more pumpkins” and wanted to walk back through again.
It was a late night with the weather delay, we got back just before 10pm, but we were so glad we made it work! It was also nice having a shorter drive this year and being able to pull right into our garage instead of dealing with the logistics of a car in NYC. If you’re ever in the NYC/Hudson Valley area during the fall, I highly recommend getting tickets to the Jack O’ Lantern Blaze. I always book our tickets by the end of August because the good dates always sell out. See you next year pumpkins!
