Father Christmas seems to appear in all sorts of weird and wonderful places, here are a few we’ve seen, and visted him at.
I can still distinctly remember going to visit Santa Claus before Christmas as a child, mainly to arm him with my exhaustive list of desired presents.
We used to go our local Co-op and through the magic of a virtual sleigh ride, and now what was clearly a second exit, we travelled to ‘Lapland’ to tell Father Christmas what we wanted, as well as taking the obligatory lucky dip type present home.
Since becoming a parent this is something I have done again, sadly not the virtual sleigh ride, as that is no more.
However we’ve been on several Santa expresses. Steam trains that either house a special Santa’s grotto carriage, or take us to one.
We have visited Santa at garden and in the middle of shopping centres, at the zoo, the farm and this year I even contemplated visiting Father Christmas at a safari park.
My son’s various grandparents have cut various adverts from local papers and stuck them under my nose for consideration.
Visiting Santa via boat. Sleepovers with Father Christmas at Alton Towers. And even the seemingly pricey overseas trek to Lapland.
Though if that’s something that would appeal to you Transun are offering some reduced Lapland deals.
Ready for Ten’s Rosie has also found some other great places to visit Santa Claus.
At six my son had already declared Santa to be non-exisitent, but I, and I think he, still want to believe in the magic of ‘good’ children having presents appear by magic on the 25th of December.
And Joanne has some great advice on how to handle a Santa doubter.
So we have at the very least written a list, that will either be left for Santa on Christmas Eve, not really giving him enough time to get it all, but me the perfect excuse for some omissions, or it will go on the fire, and thus up the chimney.
But how about you, have you paid Santa a visit on his yacht this year?
Other posts you may like
Love Ian Newbold’s post? Read more 
2 Comments
Post a comment
You must be signed in to post to Ready for Ten.
Haven’t registered? It’s really quick and simple.
admin
20 December, 2010
Sounds like you have wonderful Christmas memories Ian. I love the magic of Christmas I really do, but the rest of this post will sound very bah humbug - I apologise in advance!
I did a trip to Lapland a few years ago before I had my own childre, with a friend and her four year old, at a cost of around £400 for the day. Unfortunately we had a really disappointing experience. I'm sure it's not like that for everyone, but I wanted to share mine as there is so much to consider before splashing out that amount of money.
It was so much colder than I had anticipated and felt they could have been more informative about what kind of cold to expect, the right kind of clothing to wear etc (for those of us that had not been before). They did provide snow suits on arrival which was great, but the hour long open-air skidoo ride from the airport to Santa's grotto was unbearable because of the cold. The grotto and village were beautiful, but we had so little time there before our coach trip back, that we literally had to run around to see everything (in the dark). To top it all off, all of the 200 odd passengers on my flight came down with the worst bout of food poisening following the trip.
I don't mean to put anyone off going, I just wanted to point out that there are lots to consider before taking little ones, and I definately wouldn't take mine all that way, when they can experience much nicer Christmassy scenes here in the UK.
Wishing you all a very Merry and warm Christmas!
Leigh
Ready for Ten Team
mum
21 December, 2010
My two see Santa at their school party but they seem to have inherited my fear of beards (and clowns) and refuse point blank to see him at any other time. It's saved me a fortune (and having read Leigh's comment I'm glad I've never taken them to Lapland.)