Noob Need (night time) setting advice 4 Christmas lights pictures at Stone Mountain

[gksipps]

Taking the kids to Stone Mountain tonight - went last night and battery pack died before nightfall, so unfortunately I cant share what I had the settings on last night in order to fix them tonight. Setting is LOTS of Christmas lights in the "town" part, but the Santa train goes back through the woods so there isn't much light, also some sections of town are more lit than others because there are fewer buildings.

I think on the well lit areas, I can set it to auto and be okay, but...

what are the manual settings I should be using for the night time shots in the areas with lesser background lighting available? Also, no tripod available - with 3 yr olds it's hard to stop to take shots at all, let alone tripod shots!

Also, can I use the same settings from the questions above for the LIMITED light, taken-from-a-moving-train?

I have a Rebel Xti, an 18-55 mm lens and a 55-200 mm lens.

Thanks so much,
Karen


P.S. I did a search but didn't see anything on this topic. Feel free to redirect me if there is another similar post I've missed.