japanese lantern festival

one time the luckiest thing happened. 

i was looking for free activities around town to tell the interns at work about and i came across some girl's blog who was talking about a japanese lantern festival. i was so nervous that it had passed but it was a week from the day i found out about it! so i put that right in my little planner so i wouldn't forget about it (i find out about cool things and then almost immediately forget about them) and made plans to attend. 

the festival was being held at forest hills cemetery which is GORGEOUS. 

These pictures don't do it justice at all!

yes, the trees have clothes on. 

now. the nicest part about this festival is that it was a festival to honor those who have passed on so everyone bought lanterns to decorate for their loved ones. 

this would be the stacks and stacks of wooden frames for the lanterns 

(that they so wisely recycle each year)

so after getting all your materials you would have one of these fine japanese ladies write on your lantern. 

i was somewhat disappointed we couldn't do the characters ourselves but i'm sure hers looked way better than if i had done it myself. 

some people like this sweet old man left theirs blank 

and others (us included) wrote notes on them

in doing this i realized quite a few people in my life have passed away in the last year and as sad as it was to write each of their names down it felt nice to think about each of them and in a small way, honor them. 

this also was a celebration of life so there was a lot of singing and dancing and music 

and then as soon as the sun started going down people were anxious to light their lanterns and let them go on the little pond in the middle of the cemetery

and as it got darker and darker it just got more and more magical.

and very tangled-esque

 (even though they weren't floating on the water rather than the sky. and maybe at one point i pulled out my phone and watched the lantern scene of that movie on my youtube app which made it even more magical)

it  was just a really beautiful thing to see all those lanterns and know what they represented. losing a loved one is something almost everyone has experienced and i think it is really nice (and therapeutic) that the community comes together once a year to celebrate/honor/remember the lives of those people.