Lapland

Our trip to Lapland UK has definately gone down in the family annals!

It was a good time - though VERY cold! Four and a bit hours in freezing and below... I also can now claim to have breastfed in Lapland in public, complete with "snow" landing on my exposed bits... and I also got to feed in a traditional tent, covered in reindeer hide (me, not the tent!).

We were very nervous as to how Samuel would cope, particularly with seeing if the reality matched his "picture".

We went into the inflatable dome and watched the Snowman flight scene on the ceiling, whilst being "transported" to "Lapland" (and whilst I breastfed....)

Then we came out of the tunnel into the clearing in the forest. They had covered the surrounding trees in sprayed on snow, which actually managed (even to my adult, jaded, bah humbug eyes) to look rather magical instead of tacky.

They also had "snow" blowing intermittently out of some big blowers onto the scene, which the kids really loved.

I sat in the middle of the clearing feeding Jonathan, and trying to keep us both warm, whilst Roarke took the three boys into the Toy makers hut to make some toys.

Certificates in hand, they came out then went off to make some gingerbread.

Then the only disappointment of the whole day - paying £10 for 2 coffees and three hot chocolates that were served in small expresso sized cups (and of course William managed to pour his down himself)

We got a complementary mulled wine (the adults) which didn't exactly make up for that.

The food looked good but, as we had been warned by other family that went, it was very expensive. Using the "gluten free" card, we'd been able to take in our own food though.

After that, we had to kill about 45 minutes of time before our scheduled slot for Santa. We wandered around the clearing, went into the story telling tents, met some huskies, and saw some real reindeer. By now it was dark. We'd picked our times carefully, so that we arrived and did most of it in daylight (to help Samuel cope) but then finish it in the dark, so we got the magical feel of the fairy lights and the "snowy" trees.

We then went off to wait with our group in a tent, being called in one at a time to Santa. There were two elves amusing everyone, joined by an incredibly naughty Rudloph, who obviously rather fancied one of the elves, judging by the way he kept pinching her bottom....

Then we went in to see Santa.

He was really good, and we all ended up having quite a laugh (the boys especially thought it funny that he told them he remembered me from when I was a little girl, and that I had always been VERY naughty!).

We don't usually buy official photos, but of course we weren't allowed to take our own pictures of Santa so, as a rememberance of the day, we did purchase a group photo.

All in all, the boys enjoyed it - even Josh who is really a bit old for that sort of thing - and the boys all agreed that we will be hard pushed to top it for a Christmas surprise next year!