Christmas Magic – A Festival of Lights, Rocky Ridge County Park, 3699 Deininger Road, York, PA
Thanksgiving 2023 is officially in the books, and now it’s time for Christmas, so take our advice & head to Pennsylvania Dutch Country this holiday season for a York County Parks event that is not to be missed. This half-mile outdoor walk through a sparkling winter wonderland of Christmas lights, holiday sets, train displays, live music & yummy holiday treats is our pick for the most festive holiday display in central PA.
Featured in both The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal and located high atop a hillside overlook in beautiful York County, Pennsylvania, Christmas Magic has been a tradition of ours for decades. As a couple, we’ve made the trip many times over the last 40 years from Philadelphia, from first dates to birthdays & anniversary celebrations but this year we planned our visit around the first of 2 Pet Nights so our girl Gucci The Chocolate Lab could tag along.
MUST KNOW:
💡 Christmas Magic began with just 10,000 lights in 1983
💡 This year, Christmas Magic is celebrating it’s 40th anniversary in 2023
💡 The event runs from Friday, November 24 through Saturday, December 30, 2023
💡 The $10.00 admission price requires timed-reservations only – no walk-ins
💡 Children 5 and under are free
💡 Parking is free
💡 The trail is well paved & all exhibits are ADA-accessible
💡 Admission includes a forest of 600,000+ twinkling LED lights
💡 Don’t forget to snap your family photo with Santa & the Christmas Tree
💡 a complimentary scavenger hunt is also available for added interactive fun this holiday season
THE EXPERIENCE:
Christmas Magic is a holiday light-lover’s paradise, and it is very reminiscent of The Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights that once found it’s home at Disney’s MGM Studios at The Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. As Christmas light lovers, walking through this outdoor display each holiday season is truly a delight for us.
Here, among an enchanting woodland hilltop of central Pennsylvania, visitors will find a menagerie of Christmas light displays from old to new, bold to beautiful, and creative to quirky. Each time we visit, we hunt for old favorites and search for new displays. The kissing swans set in a flowing pool of water have always been a favorite, but we absolutely love the animated displays like the Ferris wheel, and the volcano.
Christmas Magic is not just an outdoor display. Guests can also take a break from the cold winter weather and pop indoors. There was hot chocolate, bottles of water, Bricker’s Famous French Fries, and homemade chocolate chip cookies for purchase, a warm fire to snuggle up in front of, but the highlight for us every visit is to see the elaborate train display which is always a hit with the little ones. This year our 5-month old chocolate lab Gucci didn’t want to leave. She simply couldn’t get enough of the train display as she sat perfectly still and watched each of the trains chug along by. She was in complete awe. We definitely need a train under our Christmas tree this year!
PET-NIGHT:
Even though it was one of the coldest nights of the year so far, our first Pet-Night at Christmas Magic was a huge success! There were plenty of other well-behaved pups in attendance & everyone was wearing their Christmas sweaters. The Park Staff and Visitors all enjoyed saying hello to our girl Gucci, and we loved meeting all the other dogs too.
The best part? There were no crowds or traffic jams, like in so many of the visits we made in years past (seriously, the line to get in was always the biggest drawback) thanks to the required time-entry reservation system.
We love celebrating the holiday season in a way the whole family can enjoy, including our pets and we hope you can do the same. Thank you so much to York County Parks & Rec for making Christmas Magic a pet-friendly event the whole family can enjoy. For this and so many more reasons, we highly recommend you pack your pup and plan your holiday road trip to central Pennsylvania! Merry Christmas! Reserve your slot for the next & last Pet-Night of 2023 on December 4th at www.ChristmasMagicYork.com
The comments, opinions, and views set forth on this site are the reflected personal positions of the site’s creators. This site is not an affiliate of York County Parks & Rec and all opinions are our own. The comments, opinions, and views set forth within this site are not the official positions of York County Parks & Rec, and they do not reflect the Organization’s position.
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