'My Favorite Are Santas:' Families Join Romeoville Tour Of Lights

ROMEOVILLE, IL — "My favorite are santas," said young Ahana Malhotra, accompanied by her grandmother Bharti. Both were about to get on a village bus to see the winners of Romeoville's holiday decoration competition. This 'Tour of Lights' was organized by village hall for those looking for a bit of holiday fun less than a week before Christmas. Bharti said light-up santas were her favorite too.

Kristine Wahlgren, the Village Recreation Center Supervisor who helped organize the event, said the Tour of Lights will be an annual event, starting this year.

"This is hopefully the first annual event; we haven't done it before now." she said. She added that the idea for the Tour of Lights grew out of a collaboration between the village's Beautification Commission and the Parks & Recreation Department

"So the Beautification Commission does the house-judging contest, and then, I'm with the Rec. Department, and we run the 'ride around town' program with the buses," Wahlgren said. "And the idea came to me, because I've been on the Naperville trolley tours before, that that would be really cool if we could go around Romeoville and use our bus."

While most of the attendees were parents or grandparents with children, there was a pair of adults residents who came along as part of a romantic evening.

"We heard about [the tour of lights] from the guidebook... the recreation book with all the events," Julie Walker said. "It's just us two. We used to take our kids to [see house lights] when they were little, so we thought it'd be fun to go do it ourselves."

Julie and her husband Mike also decorate their house, and she said she wanted to see how the neighbors did.

"We usually have a little display in our yard, not anything fancy," she said. "But our neighborhood's pretty nice."

Hot chocolate and candy canes were provided for all attendees, regardless of age, and as they boarded the village bus, holiday music played.

"We're going to see all the winners... 18 houses tonight," Wahlgren said.