We are lucky to live where we live. In downtown Grapevine, TX there is a train station that does a lot of various events, like “Day out with Thomas”, which I mentioned in this post. Well they also do a North Pole Express around Christmas time and it sells out quick. I bought the tickets in October they were sold out in November. Since I had plenty of advance notice I had time to make the matching train pajama pants they are sporting. I chose to do an evening time since the movie is set in the evening. This is outside the gift shop and Santa picture area.
They advise you to arrive an hour early and you actually park at the public library and there’s a shuttle that takes you to the station. In the parking lot they have some concession stands for food and the whole area is very Christmasy.
Not the actual train 😛
They scan your printed off ticket then hand you this souvenir ticket that has your seat assignment. If you are going in a large group make sure you line up together to ensure you sit next to eachother
Super excited to ride the train!
After you get on the train, that is also very decorated, they play Christmas carols that you can sing along too. Then the conductor walks through to punch your ticket. After that an announcer comes on the intercom to inform us that Mrs. Claus has boarded the train and that she will be coming by to give all the kids a special gift!! The special gift is a bell and this bell has a really pretty ring to it, not obnoxious like some bells can be.
Again, both kids did not want to take a picture with Mrs. Claus
The train ride is short, 20 minutes max. Once we got back into the station we got off into a special area to meet Santa. They designed this well, when you get on the train you don’t realize that “Santa’s village” is right behind you. They have a path lined with Christmas trees and fake snow is being shot everywhere. It’s fantastic, obviously Ian really enjoyed the fake snow.
The path led to this stage area, where they invited all the kids 4+ to sit around the stage. The elves came out and did a little act before Santa came out and danced and sang with the elves and even handed out some snow milk (cold chocolate milk) to some of the kids. Once it was over we all were handed mugs of snow milk in a souvenir cup and then we lined up to take some photos with Santa.
As you can see from the feature image Jensen was not excited to sit in Santa’s lap…Now before this Jensen was pointing at the actor Santa and saying “Santa”, and all throughout the Christmas season whenever he saw a Santa he was excited and happy so we thought he’d be ok with taking photos with him. Obviously not. It’s actually an improvement, this is the first year Ian was not crying! This is last years photo:
This year Ian even told Santa what he wanted for Christmas, which was “cars”. The price of the ticket included one printed photo with Santa, so we ended up buying two, look how he’s holding Santa’s thumb. UGH the cuteness.
Jensen was fine after we took him off Santa’s lap 🙂
