Where to take 10 and 12 year old for a Christmas Day out?

[BringBackBB]

Visits to Father Christmas are no more.

Farm parks that offer festive days are probably out too.

Where can we go?

Thinking longleat but it's so so expensive!

Also thinking a place where they do the light trail. Blenheim palace or similar but not sure if that will be boring for them.

Help!

mine and 12 and 14 now. Last couple of years we’ve done a festive afternoon tea. Last year we did a few, followed by a trip into Covent Garden where it fake snowed on the hour and we went to see Frozen at the theatre. This year we are planning to go and see Elf the musical

Sorry for the typos. Early and fat fingers.

*we did a tea
not
*we did a few.

that would just be greedy🤣

Ice skating is popular here and a useful skill to have before boyfriends/ girlfriends are dragging them onto the ice. We usually have a hot chocolate afterwards, sometimes visiting a Christmas market at the same time.

We went to a light trail last year with my 12yo DS, at Yorkshire Wildlife Park. There were kiosks selling hot choc, churros etc on the way round, which made it more festive. We all had a great time despite it raining all the way round!
DS also loves a Christmas market, we’ve done Leeds before but may try for Manchester or B’ham this year.

We've done the lights at RHS Wisley, Christmas concert in London, Christmas markets with ice skating, we go to a Christmas tree farm every year where we cut our own tree and one of the best things has been an open top bus tour of the West End lights in London. Freezing though.

We’ve booked to see Nativity at the theatre. Or what about the Snowdome at Tamworth?

This sounds great!

Light trails are great - national trust houses often do lovely ones if there’s one near you. My DD is 9 and loves a light trail with hot choc and churros!

We usually try to do at least one ballet/theatre trip as well to see something Christmassy.

Was going to suggest a festive afternoon tea.
pantomime

Last year we did outdoor ice rink and lights at hever castle.

We did a light tour last year at our nearest EH place, it was great, funfair and stalls at the end, will be going again this year.

Shopping and Christmas lights followed by show and/or dinner.

Light show or light walk, again perhaps with dinner after.

Christmas Market or fair.

We have a local forest which does an Enchanted Christmas with a walk through the forest lighting up the trees. Very cool. Forestry England.

Wouldn't recommend Birmingham Christmas Market. Absolutely heaving and full of idiots knocking back large jugs of beer. They even had a one way system in place as too crowded to allow people to just browse! Very different from how it used to be in years gone by.

Do you have Tesco Clubcard points? We use ours for Longleat every year. It's really worth it.

I second this - we went to Birmingham last year and it was incredibly crowded with groups of very drunk people and the stalls were complete rip-offs. Lots of litter, no charm at all.

Winchester Christmas market gets rammed too but I've never seen any bad behaviour, it has a one way system that works well. My top tip is to go from about 4.30, it gets much quieter and it is really atmospheric in the dark.

Longleat is expensive but it is absolutely amazing. I think you can use Tesco clubcard vouchers to get it much cheaper if that's something you use.

Waddesden has a Christmas Market and light trail after dark ie 4.30pm. You can also book afternoon tea. Was quite civilised when we went last year.

I haven't been recently but I remember Bournemouth had a pretty good Christmas market with ice skating and a light display through the park.

Winchester is nice but I find the actual market quite small and not all the stalls are festive . Last Xmas we bought more garden ironwork than gifts

I agree about Winchester, the market is small and wouldn't be more than half an hour of entertainment, plus ice skating if you chose to do that.

We always do skating at Winchester and then go for a meal so it makes it about more than just the market. I agree it is small but so pretty under the cathedral.

My teen prefers the pantomime now more than he ever did as a little kid.

I dont know if they do xmas ones but we did halloween at a theme park last year and that was a big hit.