Zofja writes:
The start of Christmas is always an exciting time in our household… Leigh Lights, decorations and advent calendars are certain to cause 6am rises. To add to the festivities this year we were lucky enough to be sent to a new Christmas experience in Brentwood! ‘Once Upon a Time’ is a feast of Christmas stuffed fun.
We began our experience in a hay filled barn with a clue to the day as we could see the arrow was pointing firmly to the word naughty! A small delay (it was their first ever time after all so this was forgiven) to the start meant we had a magic show by one of Santa’s Elves. My children absolutely loved this and watched with utter amazement! We were then guided through an interactive experience to help save Christmas. We started with helping Mother Christmas to put a stop to two naughty children’s arguments, to a world of naughty snowmen throwing snowballs at us, to helping the Elves in the Christmas post area until finally we reached the big man himself. At this stage the children were able to see they had managed to save Christmas with the arrow now firmly pointing to the word ‘Nice’. Father Christmas was pretty good; the room had been well decorated and he made an effort to speak to all of the children and myself and my mum too, bringing some extra magic to the children as he told them he remembe
red both me and grandma from our childhood days.
Highlights for my children aged 3 and 6 and 8 were the gingerbread making with the Sugar Plum fairy and finding all the letters to post in the Elves boxes.
The staff were all absolutely fantastic and put every single bit of effort into performing their parts. The groups were a good size so no child felt left out from the fun.
As you can imagine there were a few minor hiccups, the only disappointment for us was that our family photo didn’t work so we left without, and the presents are maybe a little on the small side, but on the whole I felt that it was a truly magical start to Christmas with each of my children exclaiming they had had ‘the best time’. Thank you Essex Mums!
For more information and to book, visit www.uniquechristmas.co.uk
