Taking Archie To See Santa at Wyevale Garden Centre

I've always loved Christmas, its easily my favourite time of year and has been since I can remember. I have wonderful memories of Christmas as a child and it gives me those warm fuzzy feelings in my tummy when I reminisce and think about all those magical moments. Christmas as an adult has always been wonderful too, but I think it's children that bring that extra magic to Christmas. Now we have Archie, Christmas has become magical again and this year will be his second Christmas. For me it means getting into the Christmas spirit early, putting on those Christmas films and I kid you not, Archie and I spent a good portion of last week dancing around to Christmas music - All we need to do now is put our tree up, which is happening sometime this week! I just want to cherish all these magical Christmas moments, which is why we plan on doing as many festive things as possible over the next month. This weekend we really got all those festive feels and took Archie to our local Wyevale Garden Centre to see Santa in his grotto.  It was so special and so magical, so I thought I'd share our day with you and it might help you decide where you want to take your little on this festive season.

 

We had Archie booked into see Santa in the afternoon, so we arranged to get to the garden centre an hour before so we could have a good look around. If you're not feeling partially festive yet, you must try and get yourself down to a garden centre because they are the best places to visit this time of year. Wyevale at Poddington is beautifully decorated and there was so much to take in and see. I love seeing all the trees lit up and all the Christmas decoration displays - It would be so easy to get carried away as there was so much I wanted to add to my shopping basket. I'm currently in the process of changing my Christmas decoration theme around. For years I've had a very traditional looking Christmas tree with gold and red baubles, but now I was something a little more modern and love the white and champagne gold look and I had to pick up a few new bits to add to my tree this year.  I digress, Archie loved walking around the centre, he really enjoyed taking everything in, although I had to stop him a few times from getting his little mitts on the fake snow and lit up reindeers. 

 

One of the highlights for us was the actual reindeer in Wyevale's outdoor area. I've actually never seen any reindeer and couldn't believe just how beautiful these animals are in real life - Archie was fascinated with them and he didn't even shy away when it was able to feed them (with my assistance). When I eventually managed to carry him away from the reindeer, we were able to take part in various activities that children could get involved with around the garden centre. We tried to get Archie some Christmas themed face painting done, but he wasn't having any of it! But we did see lots of happy smiles with children walking around with snowmen and reindeer painted on their faces. There was also Christmas decoration making activities, which Archie loved.

The best part of our day was taking Archie to see Santa in his grotto. We did take Archie to see him last year, but he didn't have a clue what was going on - But this year we just knew it would be a much more enjoyable experience for him. The grotto was decorated beautifully and as soon as we went in Archie was given a plant pot that contained a magical bean. Whilst waiting to see Santa, we were instructed by the elves to fill our plant pot up with soil. This had to be Archie's favourite part of the grotto experience, what is it about kids and mud? They just love it! Once our mud pot was filled, it was time to see Santa. As soon as Archie walked into the grotto his eyes lit up. It had such a cosy Christmas feel to it with its Christmas tree all lit up and Father Christmas sat on his chair next to a fire place. I was really impressed with Father Christmas, his outfit was brilliant, although Archie is still at an age where he doesn't understand who this man in red is and didn't want to get too close. The experience was so lovely and what made it extra special was Archie was told to put his plant pot in a little cupboard and once the visit was over he was able to open it and found that his magical bean had grown into a mini Christmas tree. Once the visit to Santa was over, we went into another room, which had a table full of Christmas decorations and Archie got to go crazy with the tinsel and baubles to decorate his tree with. He loved his little Christmas tree and walked away happily holding it as if it was the best thing in the world - It's now taking pride of place in our living room.

Seeing Santa was definitely hungry work and we went and sat down in the restaurant for a three course Christmas meal which was so lovely. It only felt right that we had a traditional roast turkey meal with all the trimmings to finish off our festive day. For those of you who are looking to book in a visit to Santa, Wyevale are currently offering sit down meals with Santa which would make the whole experience all that more special. You would need to book in advance as these slots are getting booked up pretty quickly, but I'l leave the links for you at the end of this post.

Overall we had such a magical day and seeing the smile on Archie's face throughout the entire day made it really special for us and a Christmas memory that we will cherish forever. If you're in the area or local to any Wyevale I would recommend checking what is going on in your store as it's definitely worth a visit and the kids will love it. You can book Santa's grotto and either dinner or tea with Santa with this link here. 

Let me know what your favourite festive memory is and what fun Christmas activities you like to do with your children?