County to revive Ascarate holiday lights show

El Paso county will be lighting up a bit of holiday cheer after years in the dark. County commissioners voted Monday to bring back Christmas lights at Ascarate park beginning in just a few weeks.

The county will be presenting “Lights on the Lake” with a celebration Dec. 12, going through Jan. 4. Putting up lights at Ascarate was an annual program the county cut during the economic downturn. But with new staff from the Parks and Special Events department behind it, it will once again light up Ascarate for the holiday season.

The display will be using some of the old light structures for this first year back, and staff hope to re-ignite it as a holiday tradition.

“What we want to do is kind of make it have a wow factor when it comes to lighting up the lake,” said Bianca Cervantes, special events manager for the county. “When the lights reflect on the lake it looks really beautiful. So it isn’t just light structures, it’s a magical thing. We’ll have a county official and Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and some elves come up on stage, and magically turn on the switch and get everything lit.”

To make it more worthwhile on the weekends, the county will be bringing in more to make it more than just something to drive by.

“Anybody can actually drive through there Monday through Thursday and just enjoy it, which is what they used to do in the past,” Cervantes said. “Weekends, we’ll have the additional food trucks, and it is the county policy $2 per car.”

The total budget for the show is just under $3,500, but the county expects to be able to break even with the extra cars and donations.