Christmas Town at Busch Gardens

We may have found a new Christmas tradition for our family! This was our first year going to Christmas Town and we had a blast and I would love to go back. Busch Gardens did a wonderful job of decorating the park for Christmas. There are real Christmas trees covered in lights all around the park. Each country has a different color theme and the trees are decorated with that theme. For example, Ireland is green and gold, France is white, pink, and purple. Italy is gold. One pathway is lit up with all purple lights and another all blue lights. Having all one color is very dramatic and pretty.

12 Days of Christmas tree in France

My favorite part of it all is the focus on Christ in the decorations. I love they have kept religion in the Christmas themes. The park also had themed music in the countries and some of that was religious too.

Of course the typical songs, decorations, and music were also played too. The Festhaus in Germany was very beautifully decorated for the show "Deck the Halls." This show had the usual non-religious songs.

This was outside the Festhaus. A choir was up on the balcony singing Christmas carols. This was another beautifully decorated tree.

My favorite show was Gloria! in Ireland. There was a live orchestra playing religious Christmas songs and the actors played out the Nativity while others sang. It was beautiful and touching. Macy sat still and watching the whole thing very closely.

Italy had a show called "Miracles!" which sang about different miracles God performs. Macy liked this one because there were ballerinas dancing.

 England is the first country as you enter the park and this was the first tree we saw. There were some Christmas carolers who were singing old fashioned Christmas carols. Macy really enjoyed listening to them. She loves watching people perform, either dance or singing.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was dinner with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Santa was very jolly and kind. Macy didn't want to sit on his lap and refused to go up on stage for a picture for quite a while. Then Santa pointed to her and asked her personally to come up and she allowed me to walk up with her. Neither girl wanted to sit on his lap but Macy smiled for this picture and Anna wasn't screaming like she had for other Santa's. Macy was still able to tell Santa she wanted a fairy Godmother doll.

The decorations were cute and the food was good too. There were only about 10 families there so it was an intimate dinner with Santa. He read us "The night before Christmas" and Mrs. Claus walked around to the tables to talk to everyone. It was very well done and Macy like it too. 

 

Eating dinner

Eating dinner

One of the rides that was open was the Sky Lift. Macy really enjoyed this ride. It was a great way to view the lights from above and see the whole park covered in lights. 

Macy also enjoyed the carousel so we rode that a few times.

Thursday Macy and I went to the local shopping area to hang out together while Anna napped and Ja could get some work done. I found a place called Beyond Bricks and it is full of tables and buckets of Legos. We played with all kinds of lego's for 1 1/2 hours. We had the whole place to ourselves. It was quite fun and Macy asked to go back there the next day. 

She said this is her city

Then we walked over to Barnes and Noble and she recognized the store and asked to play with Thomas the train. Luckily they had one (with lots of trains!) and she had it all to herself! Aww, to live in a place that isn't overly crowded...

We got to Busch Garden's right at opening time (3 p.m.) and got an amazing parking spot. We rode all the rides we could. Anna even got to ride some rides. Here Macy and Anna are on the hot air balloon ride all by themselves. Macy did a good job of keeping Anna seated when she tried to get out.

I know this picture is blurry but I thought it was hilarious Macy was walking around with this giant bag of kettle corn. It was delicious so I don't blame her!

We were at Christmas town on a Wednesday night and Thursday day and night. On Wednesday it was a ghost town. We hardly saw anyone and that made it more magical. Thursday wasn't too crowded but there was definitely more people. We could imagine how the weekends would be too crowded so we will be sure to go during the week again next year. I really hope there can be a next year! It was so much fun and a wonderful Christmas memory to have.