The Chattanooga Zoo is seen in this file photo.IF YOU GO• What: Holiday Lights.• When: 5:30-8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, Dec. 14-15 and 21-22.• Where: Chattanooga Zoo, 301 N. Holtzclaw Ave.• Admission: $8.95 adults, $5.95 ages 3-12.• Phone: 697-1322.• Website: www.chattzoo.org.
They don’t have the opposable thumbs necessary to hang tinsel or access to ovens to bake cookies for Santa, but even animals can get in the spirit of the holiday season.
The next two Fridays and Saturdays, Dec. 14-15 and 21-22, Chattanooga Zoo is hosting its seasonal Holiday Lights celebration. During the event, the Warner Park institution will be transformed into a bedazzling wonderland draped in “tens of thousands of lights,” according to zoo Executive Director Darde Long.
Preparations for the event have been ongoing for about a month, and the resulting display should make the zoo unrecognizable to even its most frequent guests, she said.
Staff members have “really outdone themselves,” Long said, as she tried to work out “an extension-cord issue” during preparations last Friday. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many lights in the zoo. I was stunned. It was just spectacular. I think everyone is in for a real treat.”