The wholesome moment when a dad convinced his daughter she turned on the Eiffel Tower’s lights

He brought a light switch and everything.

paris, eiffel tower, paris lights
Photo credit: via Redheadresidence/TikTok Esmae turns the lights on the Eiffel Tower.

There are few things more magical for a young girl than spending a warm summer night in Paris in front of the lights of the Eiffel Tower. But Joel Redhead, 29, took things up a notch recently when he convinced his daughter, Esmae, that she turned on the lights all by herself.

The father and daughter duo were in Paris celebrating Esmae’s 8th birthday. Sadly, her mother couldn’t be there for health reasons.

Joel, from Yorkshire, England, told his daughter they were going to Liverpool for the weekend, but after spending a night in the city, that next morning, he surprised her with a trip to the City of Light.


“When we woke her up in the hotel the morning of our trip at 5 am and broke the news to her, she was completely overjoyed, but the excitement didn’t end there,” he told The Yorkshire Post.

Joel packed a light switch for the trip, and when they arrived at the Eiffel Tower, he told his daughter that she was responsible for turning the lights on that night. He handed her the switch, and she turned her back to the tower. When the lights came on, she flipped the switch, turned around and countless sparkling lights illuminated the city.

Later, the dad told his daughter that the switch wasn’t connected to the tower, but she loved the experience anyway.

“She said she felt magical, and though now she knows that daddy set this up to give her a memory of a lifetime and how the lights really worked, she finds it hilarious that we pranked the people around us who believed she turned them on,” he said.

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