Yorba Linda East Lake Village Holiday Lights
It’s finally the holiday break! We drove down to SoCal on Christmas Day to spend the week with Ryan’s family and friends. Kona and I had never experienced the holiday season in SoCal before, and to say we were excited to sunbathe again after weeks of Bay Area gloom was an understatement. Sunshine here we come!
It was a cold and windy drive down. I kept my thermals on during the entire six-hour drive until I sweated them off the minute we arrived in LA County – it was an astonishing 80 degrees outside! Kona couldn’t contain her excitement. She leapt out of the car and blissfully rolled all over the sunny corner on the front yard of Ryan’s childhood home.
After a long day of driving followed by the inevitable Christmas dinner food coma, we desperately needed to stretch our legs and walk it all off. Kona, on the other hand, could’ve happily sat at home all night begging Grandma for more chicken.
What’s more merry than wrapping up the day with a nightcap of holiday lights? We were hoping to find a neighborhood of holiday lights just as grand and festive as our favorite Willow Glen Holiday Lights stroll back in the Bay Area. And we did! At East Lake Village Community Association in Yorba Linda, an affluent city in northeastern Orange County.
The holiday lights experience here is centered around a 15-acre lake surrounded by waterfront homes and boats – a unique atmosphere that we’ve never encountered before. Nearly all of the houses in the community are elaborately bedazzled with lights. There are not only lights hanging from the roofs and decorations adorning the front yards, but even more all over the garage doors, side yards, back patios AND the boats parked on the lake! We’ve never seen garage doors decorated with holiday-themed banners before. Each court not only has its own distinct theme ranging from twinkling angels to candy canes to wreaths, but the common areas are intricately decorated as well. This will be a MUST SEE for us whenever we are in OC for the holiday season!
Additional things to consider during your visit:
- Parking – There is plenty of street parking available. We parked on Vista Laguna.
- Crowd Level – From our experience, it was pretty crowded around 8-9pm on Christmas Day. Consider visiting around sunset or after 9pm to avoid the after-dinner crowds.
- Walk or Drive – Walk! The roads are narrow, so weaving in and out of each court in a car would be pretty cumbersome.
- Distance – Around 2 miles.
- Duration – The community is composed of 8 courts and can be walked in ~1 hour.
- Don’t Miss – The residents hold their own annual lighted boat parade on the second weekend in December beginning at 6:30pm. Come out and watch 40+ beautifully decorated boats parade on the lake!
- Dog-Specific – There are lots of dogs and the roads are narrow, so be extra mindful if your bestie is reactive towards other dogs.
- Our Favorites – The displays on Via Fonte and Via Rene are spectacular! Don’t forget to stop by the club house and Village Center Dr to see rows of towering trees glowing with lights.
