At the weekend we took Baby to see Santa. We have tried a couple of times over the last week or so, but we didn’t book anywhere and long queues are not compatible with a toddler. So we decided to book more of an Santa experience. Last year, Baby cried when sitting on Santa’s knee and so the last thing we wanted was to queue for hours, then have her refuse to go anywhere near the big fella! So on recommendation from a friend, we booked tickets to Santa’s grotto in Oxfordshire.
Our trip didn’t get off to the best start, as poor Baby was up during the night being quite sick, poor little mite. She was very poorly, but seemed much better in the morning and hadn’t been sick for about 7 hours, so we decided to stick with our plans. Unfortunately, a couple of minutes from the venue Baby was quite badly sick all over her new Christmas jumper and tutu. It is just awful seeing your child being sick and I think we would all take it away from them and experience it ourselves if we could.
After a quick clean up and change we headed to the grotto, prepared to play it by ear and just bring her out if she looked poorly again. Bless her as soon as she saw the reindeer, she was captivated.
We made our way into the grotto to be greeted by some wonderful elves, who gave us instructions to make Reindeer food and came round with magic dust for our bags.
The grotto was filled with lovely Christmas decorations and lots of animated characters.
When the Reindeer food was made and the children had learned a song and dance for Santa, we were taken into the next room which was Santa’s living room. Roaring fires, Christmas trees and lots of comfy bean bags. Baby was a little unsure and just wanted to stay with Mummy and Daddy. She did enjoy having a look round and she took it all in.
Then after Santa and the elves had entertained us with stories; the children and their families went up one by one to meet Santa and have their photo taken. All of the children received ‘The Night before Christmas’ book from Santa. Baby really wasn’t sure at all and just buried her head onto my neck, only once making eye contact with him. The next stop was to show our passport to the elves in the next room, who made the children promise to tidy their toys and eat their vegetables in return for a stamp on their passport and time to choose whichever toy they wanted from the various shelves stuffed full of toys.
We had a brief wander back through the garden centre and into the Ice Cafe for a cup of tea.
Then Baby started to feel a little pooorly again, so we headed home for a bath, PJs and snuggles for the afternoon.
I am linking up with the following fabulous bloggers and their lovely linkys.
Katie from Mummy Daddy Me for #OrdinaryMoments (granted not ALL of this is ordinary)
Jaime at The Olivers’ Madhouse for #MagicMoments 
Charly at Podcast Dove for #What’sTheStory 
