Finally, my hunt is over.

Dan and I have visited a few local Christmas light shows and none of them have cut the mustard. I won’t name names, but we have been underwhelmed by two or three of the area’s most popular light displays.

Luckily, we happened across Garden of Lights at The Gardens on Spring Creek, only 5 miles from our house. The Gardens are an 18-acre “community botanic garden” and during the holidays they put on a horticulture-themed light display that I found completely charming.

The closer you look at the Garden of Lights displays, the more you can discover. We wandered the displays slowly, pointing each other toward what turned out to be chili peppers, daffodils, a grape arbor, hollyhocks (<< thanks for that one, Linda). We stumbled upon a pond, a pumpkin patch, and a bumper crop of carrots.

The photos don’t do it justice. It isn’t as enormous display as, say, the Cincinnati Zoo’s Festival of Lights,  but Garden of Lights is packed with beautiful, delicate details and moments of surprise and whimsy.

Building new traditions in a new city takes time, but Garden of Lights became an instant Christmas tradition for us.

P.S. If you go, check out their entertainment calendar in advance — on specific nights Gardens of Lights offers live music, photos with Santa and more. We visited on a quiet night, which was just fine by me.