Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan, USA
Dashing through the snow, ice, rain, or 60 degree temperatures …this is early winter in Michigan! We headed to Greenfield Village for their Holiday Nights on a snowless, but bitter cold night in mid-December. The snow would have made it more “wintery” but for the sake of pushing a stroller for Bubba, I was glad to have dry sidewalks and streets.
To fully appreciate this event, I think that it would be beneficial to visit at least once during the day during regular operating hours beforehand. This will make you appreciate the candle and oil lamp lighting that was offered all around the park. I wasn’t prepared for this, and should have brought the dSLR camera to accomodate for the dark lighting conditions, so I apologize for the blurry photos as my phone camera struggled to keep up. If you are looking to capture the perfect photo memories, I recommend a camera with fast shutter speed capabilities.
Media tickets were provided by Greenfield Village for us to explore. As always I do my best to represent the opinions of each person in our crew that attended.
This was the kids first visit to the village, so we will need to bring them back when more of the houses are open for tours. They seemed to enjoy the ones that were open. There was a select few houses open for touring, since most of them would not be able to accommodate the lighting needed to safely allow guests to visit. We first visited the Ford Home, which was decorated for Christmas, and there was a storyteller in the kitchen cooking up some traditional foods from that time period.
Next, a stop at the one room schoolhouse allowed Buddy and Buggie to write letters to Santa. We cheated here, and Gpa shined his cell phone flashlight so that Buggie could compose her letter. After they completed their letters, they walked them to the Post Office to mail them off to the North Pole.
The streets were nicely decorated with holiday cheer, with street performers sprinkled all around, including carolers. Buddy was in a major hurry to get to the ice skating rink, so he stopped and asked an officer for directions.
That is him below. The black blur. He was skating so fast, he miiiight have been given a time out by Mrs. Clause. No fast skating on the rink. You’ve been reminded.
While he was skating, Bubba, Buggie and I went to ride on the Model T cars. This is an experience that you typically have to pay extra for during the day, so it was a special treat. The line was quite long, and I gave Buggie the option to take a pass, but she wanted to wait. The ride itself was maybe three minutes once we did get in our car, but what a unique experience, even if her five year old self didn’t really understand the historical significance of the Model T.
For refreshments, hot cider, hot chocolate, coffee and cookies are offered for family friendly options. For those visiting without kiddos, there was a heated beer and wine tent.
As we continued to walk around, we saw more carolers, as well as small campfires to sit by and warm yourself on this brisk night. You can imagine that kiddos, no matter how cold, didn’t really sit for long, but it was just long enough to gain a little body heat back.
We soon found Santa standing on the balcony of a historic home. He was reading aloud the nice list from his perch. Honestly, I don’t know if it was coincidental, or if there was some sort of microphone system or spy on the ground, but my kids were all tickled when their names were called as being on the nice list. Of course Santa had brought along his reindeer for all to get an up close look at. They looked pretty real to me!
Another long patient wait was for the carousel. They were selling popcorn in the pavilion, so that provided a happy distraction to the long wait. This was the highlight of the night for Bubba.
After the Carousel came the crafts! Each kiddo colored a ribbon and attached a jingle bell. Bubba colored on everything but that white ribbon, but was enamored with the vintage lights on the tree.
The evening was capped off with a caroling procession complete with a sing-along with Santa, followed by fireworks as he departed to head back to the North Pole. Seriously, anytime I can see fireworks, it lights my heart, and fireworks in Michigan in December are hard to come by.
I could easily see this becoming a family tradition. It brings it all back to a simpler time. Despite the bitter cold, this got a big thumbs up from each member of this tribe.
I know September isn’t the time you might be thinking about the December Holiday season in Michigan, I mean, it just got warm here a few weeks ago! However, this event sells out. We would have loved to have done the dinner with Santa, but by the time we got our hockey schedule for the year, the dinner with Santa was sold out. Maybe this is our year! If you would like to have dinner with Santa, give Greenfield Village a call at 313-982-6001.
Tickets for the 2019 Greenfield Village Holiday Nights go on sale for Members on August 28th, and to the general public on September 4th. Get yours today!
