We Shut Down Santa's Village

Back at the beginning of the month, one of the local news stations had a deal where you could buy a Santa's Village pass for half price. The pass admitted five people and was $12.50. I bought one and also told Jackie about it and she bought one too. We then decided that Monday, December 16 would be a good night to go. The weekends at Santa's Village are always packed to the brim with people and so we thought that it might be less crowded on a Monday night.Well, as you probably read in my last post, Ashlyn has the flu and so that meant Jackie and the kids would not be able to go on Monday night. So, I asked Erika and Kendra to come along with me and they graciously agreed. 

I had some chili left over from Friday night and so I told the girls to come on over around 6:00 p.m. and we would have chili for dinner before heading out to see Santa. In case you were wondering, yes, I stopped by the store and bought some Saltines before going home to warm up the chili. Erika got stuck with some last minute work and arrived about 6:15 and we then ate dinner. We left the house about 7:15 to go to Santa's Village and found a parking spot very close by which was a good sign that the place wouldn't be too crowded. We walked in with no problem at all and the village was more like a ghost town as there were hardly any people at all there. 

Our first stop was the toy shop where we colored a candy cane ornament and played with wooden toys and had our picture made with Frosty the Snowman. Some children came in after we started playing with the toys so we decided to let them play instead of us, I guess it was the right thing to do. 

 

 

Next up we had our picture taken in the snowmen cutouts where we put our heads in the top of the snowmen and then we ventured over to Mrs. Claus' Kitchen where we decorated gingerbread men cookies.

We then got in line to see Santa Claus. The line wasn't too long and seemed to be moving quickly. It was maybe a 15 minute wait and so worth it because we got to have our photo taken with the jolly old fellow and we told him we had been really good this year to which we replied, "You expect me to believe that?" Why yes, Santa, yes we do. 

After visiting with Santa, we peeked in the windows of the Elves' rooms and did the ice maze. We then ran across Mrs. Claus who was reading a story. We then had our photo taken with her and told her we were having such a good time and that we might have a better time if some Egg Nog were to be made available. Sadly, there is no Egg Nog at Santa's Village. 

 

 

We walked through the print shop admiring the decorations and then wrote a letter to Santa. We deposited our letters in the mailbox to Santa and then made our way to the blacksmith shop where we watched the smithy make a couple of nails, one of which Erika got to keep since she has a birthday this week. 

 

 

Finally we had our picture taken on the sleigh because no trip to Santa's Village is complete without the sleigh photo. 

 

 

We stopped off to look at the reindeer and then went by the gift shop where, yes, I ended up buying a few items. At this point it was 9:00 p.m. and Santa's Village was closing up shop for the night; so, we took our leave and headed back home. It was one of the funnest nights I have had in a long time and I'm so glad we were able to do this. Christmas can still be magical for us big kids too!