I WAS invited along to visit Santa's Gingerbread Grotto in Centrale this week. It is the first year that the centre has had a children's grotto and the Centrale staff were keen to show it off. Each year I stomp along with the kids to visit Father Christmas. The visit usually lasts for a very few minutes, and for me, its main aim is to buy a fridge magnet containing a photo that shows us all sitting around the Man in Red. We add this to the collection that has accumulated on the fridge door through the years, which shows the children gradually growing up, Christmas by Christmas. It's one of my sentimental time-markers of motherhood and of growing children.
The Gingerbread Grotto is located on the ground floor of the mall at the Rush Hair end of House of Fraser. The grotto looks like a giant gingerbread house that has emerged from the pages of a storybook. There is a short winding path that allows waiting families to queue for their turn. This is lined with snow covered pine trees and furry reindeer and leads to the door of the Giant lollipops lead the way too. We went to the grotto immediately after school and the queue was not long. I imagine that as the schools break-up, queue length and waiting time will be longer. The winding part of the path through the trees is quite short, and in busier times I imagine that the queue will snake down the Centrale mall, tucked against the side of the staircase that it nestles beneath.
Before we joined the queue, the children decorated gingerbread men with icing and sweets, helped along by the first green and red clad elves that we encountered on our visit. This was a free activity. Up to and including the 22nd December, these elves will be running various free activities for the children to enjoy in an area in front of the Grotto. Check the website for the activities that will be happening.
Now there are few things in the world that my children like more than chatting to grown-ups who give them attention and time. During our queuing time, they chatted excitedly and happily to the elves who were looking after the grotto visitors. This brightly clad crew in their green and red hats and outfits were friendly, happy, chatty, animated and just plain nice! As with all grown-ups who will listen to my children, the elves soon knew much about me, the family, the cat and any other minutiae that it occurred to the children to share with them. These elves were not sickly sweet and cloying in their interactions with the children, but friendly and genuinely interested and chatting with them. After last year's experience of queuing for our turn to see Father Christmas on Christmas Eve, this was a real delight. On that occasion, after queuing for twenty minutes, a brightly clad but miserable-faced elf in another centre and in another grotto, informed us that we couldn't see Santa that day and asked us to leave the queue as Santa needed to go home. This was totally disappointing for my then 5 and 7 year olds who were queuing to take their baby sister for her first ever visit to Santa. Sad to say that there is a gap in the fridge-magnet photographic-record for 2012.
As you get close to the grotto door, the money elf takes your payment of £3.50 per child for the visit. Although there were windows we didn't really peer in as my daughters were still chatting to the money-elf and trying to persuade her to show them some boogie-dancing. As all smart elves and grown-ups do, she deftly turned this request around and they were soon boogie-dancing for her instead.
Our turn arrived and the door was opened from the inside and we all gasped in delight at the interior of the grotto. It was gorgeous. I felt as though I were in the fire-warmed, richly decorated living room of a cosy North-Pole home. The light in the room was provided by the glow of lights from the fat, beautifully decorated Christmas tree and from the fireplace that had a large, shimmering, realistic but pretend fire that seemed to burn in the grate. There were comfy chairs for parents to sit in and golden cube shaped seats for the children so that they could sit right in front of Santa. The tree was surrounded by a deep pile of wrapped gifts. Santa's outfit was plush and fluffy and I think he may have bought himself a new one this year as his white gloves were spotless, his boots were shiny and black, and he patted his ample tummy to show the children why Mrs Claus had told him that he was to show a bit of restraint with the mince pies this year and not to eat every single one that he saw.
For me, the Gingerbread Grotto was straight from the pages of childhood Christmas story books. I sat in the firelight and fairy-light glow, feeling contented and Christmassy as I smiled broadly and watched my children listen in rapt delight to Santa's stories of naughty elves and toy-making. The children are almost the complete focus in this grotto and they loved the attention, the time and the stories and magic that were shared with them. I laughed out loud twice at the stories of the naughty elves myself. For that short while, my girls and I were transported to a story scape and a magical place in the centre of that brightly lit, bustling shopping centre. It was a delight to enjoy it and to watch the children enjoying it. The photographer sat unobtrusively and patiently until Santa and the children were coming to the close of their conversation. We all felt that we had blinked when the bright flash lit up the darkened room, but the photos didn't seem to show this. The photographer took multiple shots of us that we were able to look through afterwards. Santa explained to the children that as he had called their names to come in, presents had flown to his side that he believed must be for them. They took their gifts with beaming grins and words of thanks (I didn't even need to remind them!) and one of my daughters spontaneously threw her arms around Santa to give him a hug. My eldest daughter (the one who had hugged, funnily enough)wondered afterwards if this may have been Santa's cousin, but my second daughter refuted this strongly and they came to the conclusion that this probably was the real Santa, rather than one of his helper-Santa's who sometimes have to man grottos at this busy time of year.
On the day that we visited, Santa had further help in the form of the services of professional polygraph (lie-detection skills and technology) examiner Terry Mullins. He posed the children a series of questions to check whether they would be truthful about their behaviour at home and school, and whether it was naughty or nice. Terry was brilliant with the children and this was pure entertainment for us parents to enjoy. This was a one off event on Thursday 19th December I'm afraid, so you parents who missed it will have to wait until next year to see your children squirm!
Now there were no fridge magnets amongst the photographic goodies to be bought and that was a little disappointing just because this would be year two with no new photo to adorn my refrigerator door, but that is very personal and trivial gripe that is borne of me liking to do everything the same every Christmas. If you choose to buy photographs, you can buy them presented as snow-globes, keyrings and mounted in a greeting card amongst other choices. The grotto manager, Pat, happened to be in the photo-buying booth and he was just as friendly, patient and chatty as the other members of his grotto team. If you don't want to buy the photographs and you don't want to draw the children's attention to it, turn left as you leave the grotto. If you are on a tight budget you can then keep the cost at exactly £3.50 per child. The children can be distracted by being taken to open their presents elsewhere in the mall. My girls both received a very nice art set as their gift. It was a quality gift given the relatively low price of the visit.
The Gingerbread Grotto team seem to genuinely enjoy their work. They really helped the children to have a fun, happy, magical experience. There are only five shopping days left until Christmas, so pop down and enjoy this Christmassy experience with your children. Preschool and primary school aged children will delight in it. Opening times of the Grotto can be found on the Centrale Website at http://www.centrale.co.uk/events/gingerbread-grotto
