Uptown Houston Holiday Lighting

I took my Mother to the 2013 Uptown Houston Holiday Lighting. It was our first time, after living 33+ years in Houston… If you’ve lived in Houston at least 10 years, you should attend this annual event at least once.
Pros:
— There is lots of parking even if you don’t arrive early. The flyer also has a map of the free parking areas.
— The music is good.
— There are some booths, one of which lets you throw a ball through some holes in the back and you could win t-​shirts, stress balls, etc…
— There are police directing the flow of traffic which made leaving the area smooth.
— There are lots of food options (albeit mostly unhealthy carnival type food).
— The other attendees are polite (We only saw one drunk guy helped by his friends. Alcohol was not available at the event so I’m not sure how that happened.)
— There are lots of places to sit (e.g. along the curb, concrete garden walls of surrounding businesses, etc…) I brought a chair for my mother, though.
— The terrific fireworks show at the end was choreographed to music.
— The emcees did a good job entertaining.
— It was held in a fun area so you could walk around if you were waiting for the fireworks.
— Some booths sold hot chocolate for only $ 2 when the temperatures were in the low 50s.
— The food was not overpriced (except that bbq food truck selling turkey legs for $ 10 each).
Cons:
— They advertised food trucks but other than a bbq one, they were mostly generic fair food tents serving turkey legs ($ 8!), hot dogs, corn dogs, nachos, fajitas, sandwiches, tortas, funnel cakes, etc…
— Lots of vendors were selling flashing colorful light toys that may make parents buy junk for their kids, wasting money.
— I didn’t see any portable restrooms.
— There were strobes flashing lights.
— The diesel-​fueled generators powering some of the food tents were really loud and smelly.