Cheerful holiday music and dazzling hues of red and green were skillfully combined to create a musical Christmas experience like
San Jose has never seen before.
Christmas in the Park, Downtown San Jose’s annual Christmas display of lights, trees and exhibits, has been reinvented this year to adhere to local coronavirus mandates.
The festive holiday tradition changed from its downtown location to a drive-through attraction at History Park on Senter Road.
Jason Minsky, the executive director of Christmas In the Park, said the decision to change locations was based on restructuring the event from its pre-pandemic walking experience into an attraction patrons can view from their cars.
“[History Park] lends itself very well to a drive-through,” he said. “It has paved roads [and] it’s very scenic. Kind of like a Main Street USA itself, with lampposts and historic buildings.”
Minsky said many people believe Christmas in the Park is still organized by the City of San Jose, but the festivities are currently run by volunteers from a nonprofit organization under the same name, after the city could no longer afford the event in 2012.
The event previously held at Plaza De César Chávez was free, but this year’s ticket prices are $10-40 per car, depending on the time of day of the visit. The nonprofit made this change to substitute for the money it typically made at concessions, rides and vendors, which will not be included.
“Because of COVID, we had to pivot,” Minsky said. “The only way we could do an event this year and successfully do an
event in the future is to charge. There was just no way around, not charging for the event.”
He said the large parking lot at History Park is beneficial for line control, giving event coordinators a place where cars can wait before entering the event as well as avoid creating traffic on Senter Road.
There were both positive and negative aspects that accumulated in the reimagining of Christmas in the Park.
The event guides the long line of cars through History Park’s graciously large parking lots.
Arriving 15 to 20 minutes before the ticketed arrival time is ideal if visitors wish to enter the drive-through light display on time.
As cars approach the entrance of the event, staff in light-up jackets scan tickets through the car window to maintain social-distancing.
Visitors are encouraged to tune into the radio station 93.1FM through signs decorated with dancing elves for music that accompanies the dancing lights.
The music lends itself well to the colors and flashing lights, with blue hues for the song, “Into the Unknown” from the Disney movie “Frozen.” Festive reds and greens mirror the melody of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
Christmas light enthusiast J.R. Mattos is this year’s exhibit engineer and the brains behind the light and soundtrack programming, according to a Christmas in the Park news release.
Mattos’ seamless engineering makes every corner special, with piano keys projected on a building playing the beginning of Faith Hill’s “Where Are You Christmas?”
A light outline of Olaf, the snowman from “Frozen”, portrays the character singing
Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
However, many of the displays during the first part of the event show signs of wear, with one of the dancing children’s heads
falling off and quite a few creaking exhibits like the penguin merry-go-round.
Multiple light tunnels make car-bound visitors feel like they’re in a Downtown
Las Vegas postcard, surrounded by flashing vibrant lights.
In the latter half of the drive, vehicles cruise through a beautiful Christmas town with snow-topped roofs and aisles upon aisles of Christmas trees decorated with various themes of the movie “Elf” and a patriotic display with an American flag tree topped by a giant
bald eagle.
The Christmas trees are dedicated to their sponsors, including many Girl Scout troops, San Jose families and companies
in the South Bay.
The event’s lack of sponsorships is not evident, with each display featuring supporters.
Some displays did suffer from the drive-through experience and are made to be read while physically standing in front of them instead of driving past. Displays with written, elaborate Christmas stories and trees with paragraph-long dedications slow down the experience.
The event is completely worth the $20 entrance fee and the experience was about an hour of Christmas magic.
Christmas in the Park maintains its charm and delivers a much-needed dose of Christmas cheer this holiday season amid the pandemic.
