For the past three weeks, the city of Yukon has been preparing for this weekend’s opening of their giant Christmas light festival, Christmas in the Park. In fact, when the family and I went to the Community Center the weekend before Halloween for their annual haunted house (Spooksville), Christmas lights were already being hung around the parking lot.

While we were out with the kids tonight we decided to drive through the park and look at the lights. Gates were scheduled to open at 6pm, and we were approximately the tenth car in line. About five after six the barricades were removed and the line of cars began slowly filtering into the drive-thru light show.

About a minute and a half into the ten minute adventure, a woman approached our car on foot. Typically the city asks for donations at the end of the show, not during it, so we weren’t sure what this person wanted. As she approached our car and said, “there’s a large transformer on fire. Please drive through to the end of the park immediately.”

Unfortunately no one told the first half a dozen or so cars of the impending blaze. The front of the pack continued their lumbering pace of two miles per hour along the single-file path, unaware of the approaching fire. While the kids looked out the windows enjoying the lights, Susan kept her eyes on the road as I continually glanced over my shoulder, watching for approaching flames. Fortunately we never saw any, otherwise we would have gone off-road to get out of there. It’s never good karma to peel out on baby Jesus and his manger, regardless of the threat.

By the time we got to the end of our little drive, the smell of fire hung in the air as smoke drifted into view. And as I suspected, whatever danger there really was wasn’t great enough to prevent the people asking for donations at the end of the drive to stop our car, collect our spare change, and hand out peppermint candies to the kids.

I hope all the elves made it out safely.