Meeting Santa at The Tall Twinkling Tree

When driving somewhere, we saw a giant tree full of lights on the way. Our children wanted to go see it, so I started looking at what exactly this huge, peaking over the fence, light up tree actually was! It turns out, The Tall Twinkling Tree is the name of the place, and there is a lot more than the tree you can see from the road – you can actually book up an experience to meet Santa and tell him your Christmas wish. We had not met Santa yet, so decided to book it up.

The Tall Twinkling Tree has a lot of aspects to one place; firstly, there is a little bit of an indoor light walk, where you can see a bunch of different, Christmas looking displays! There are tons of Elf on the Shelfs hidden about, which all three of ours really enjoyed finding and pointing out. Robin was really into taking photos as well, and took a lot of the elves hidden. The displays were cute, making a lovely indoor walk, and each one was set up like a photo point so you could get a picture of you and your family outside of them.

This then opened us up to a bigger room, with a table that had letters for Santa! We made thank you notes for Santa, as we were going to talk to him in a moment, and mailed them in the postal box to the North Pole, in the next room. This is an adorable idea and we can see how helpful it would be if the place was busy! At the time we went (late on a random Thursday evening) we were spread out from the other group that was in there. This area also had an elf and present photo spot, that let you stick your faces through holes! This was super cute.

We then went into the biggest area of The Tall Twinkling Tree, which had a giant Christmas Tree, fully decorated, along with tons of different moving decorations, as well as toys and a wall of presents. This area is also perfect for getting some photographs, and feels really impressive. Throughout, there is Christmas music playing, and here you can wait for your turn to see Santa. An elf soon came out and let us know Santa was ready to see us.

Santa was a thin this year, and well prepared to talk. In previous years, we have had a very limited time to talk with Santa, but this time, he was able to ask all sorts of questions about how our kids were doing in school, talk to us about our Christmas jumpers, what we liked, where I was from, and the like. It was actually a really lovely, so-not-rushed time with Santa. Of course, we took a bunch of pictures with and without his elf friend! The elf also took some pictures on our phone – there isn’t any sort of upcharge for the photos!

After our lengthy time with Santa, we moved onto the Toy Room, where each child was able to select one toy to take with them. Then, we walked out of the building out by The Tall Twinkling Tree itself. We took some pictures by this tree. It’s worth noting that often there is a giant snowman too, but with all the rain we have been having in Essex lately, the snowman wasn’t inflated at this time. There was a nice smelling food truck and little eating area in the middle of this little walk too, which is nice if you are looking for a bite to eat! We really enjoyed this holiday surprise, finding it super fun to meet Santa and not be rushed at all! Being indoor, especially with this year’s weather, is another plus too!

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!