Christmas Time – Mistletoe & Wine (and Whisky, Vodka, Chocolate & More Wine!)

I’m a big fan of Christmas generally. I enjoy the concept of buying gifts for my nearest and dearest (even if the practise is a bit stressful), love Christmas decorations, am partial to a few Christmas songs and love Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.

This time around our little one is 2 1/2 so understands a lot more about what’s going on than he did last year and seems genuinely excited about Father Christmas, pretty lights, advent calendar chocolates and presents.

This year brought our first trip to see Santa in his grotto, complete with reindeer, courtesy of our local gardening centre. We initially tried to go last week, but Santa had buggered off somewhere and both reindeer had the shits so aside from some animated penguins and seals it didn’t exactly deliver!

However we persevered, booked online and went a few days ago. Unfortunately the reindeer still had the shits so were hidden away, but Father Christmas appeared well enough to receive guests. All the way round the garden centre, Joshua was extremely keen to find Father Christmas.

‘Daddy I NEEEEEEEEED to see Father Christmas’

‘Move out the way daddy, coming through’

‘I not want to do colouring – I want to see Father Christmas!’

As we entered the waiting area / magical Christmas wonderland the excitement grew even stronger. We all sat in a sleigh and had our photos taken amidst a backdrop of snowy trees and animatronic, non pooing reindeer, but all Joshua wanted was to see the big man himself.

Our time came and we were ushered through the curtain to see Father Christmas himself. Every child’s dream.

‘I not want to see Father Christmas’

Balls.

American Santa tried to engage Joshua in conversation but to no avail. He tried to get a high five out of him but with no joy. Amidst much grabbing of trouser legs, Joshua did pluck up the courage to take his present out of Santa’s sack, although tried to climb in it to hide away straight afterwards.

And that was that – we exited through the curtain back into the cold and felt a bit bad for US Santa as I’m sure he gets hundreds of equally overawed children every week trying their best to get away from him.

Magical.

Joshua raved on afterwards about how much he enjoyed it though, so that’s the important part! And we did get some gorgeous photos on the sleigh so it wasn’t a complete waste of £9.99!

Hopefully your little ones have an equally enjoyable first grotto experience 😂😂