Short pre-Christmas (2017) break - guaranteed snow, not Lapland, not skiing - any ideas?

[Guitargirl]

Am not even sure if such a thing exists.

Am looking for a few nights stay somewhere snowy in the run up to Christmas next year. We have been to Lapland a few years ago, DCs will be 10 and 8 so would rather not do anything which involves Santa trips, etc. Not keen on skiing either.

I have an idea of a cosy cabin somewhere with lots of snow where the DCs can play in the snow, maybe go tobogganing or something and I can chill out and look at nice scenery. Any ideas please? Switzerland?

No idea but sounds lovely!

Following but no ideas sorry!

Can you not do Lapland holidays but without Santa involved?

If it's before Christmas I would rule out Switzerland, the snow in December has been very unreliable these past few years. How about Sweden?

I may take a look at Lapland without the Santa excursions. I did so much research when booking the Christmas 2014 trip but I was mainly looking at Santa type things then. We ended up going fairly north as I had also heard reports of not much snow in the southern parts some years. We have family in Sweden (again in the south where there will probably not be snow) so would prefer to avoid Sweden as if we go there they will expect us to visit (and we won't have time!).

Hmmm, I'll see if I can dig around in my memory for all the info I gathered on Lapland a few years ago!

We went to Lapland this year & it was a specific Santa trip (with Canterbury Travel & was amazing!) but I got the impression that everything we were doing could be done separately without the Santa element - we did Reindeer Sleigh ride, husky riding (you drove the sled), snow mobile riding, sledging & general snow play. We flew to Rovaniemi & stayed in Luosto & there seemed to be quite a few companies there offering different snow excursions.

We want to do a similar trip in future years but without Santa.

The problem am coming up against is that unless you fly with a travel company which has a chartered flight then there are no direct flights from the UK to Lapland. You have to change in Helsinki which I guess is not a problem just makes it a much longer journey. We went with Esprit back in 2014 to Saariselka which was fab but definitely Santa-based. And from what I can tell all the companies which run pre-Christmas Lapland trips are Santa-focussed. Am looking at flights now to Ivalo via Helsinki and then booking accommodation directly with the provider.

I didn't realise you couldn't fly to Rovaniemi separately, sorry. That is annoying then. Sorry - not much help!

Yes, it's a pain, I remember this last time I was looking, in order to fly independently in December the flights were coming out at over 1K which is a bit eye-watering and you have to change at least once. I will keep looking, there's plenty of time!