The Christmas Place

I met a friend at Panera for coffee...actually their really decadent Hot Chocolate and was discussing whether a trip into Boston was in order today. The Frog pond is open for skating and the Holiday lights are on in the Boston Gardens. My friend pointed out that the ice sculptures for First Night haven’t been done yet so it might be better to go in on New Years day. The sculptures should still be there, unless New Year’s Eve is really warm, and all of the other decorations will still be up.

We kicked around some other places to check out and finally settled on The Christmas Place on RT 18 in Attleboro. I had seen their ads popping up on this Blog and was curious about it.

My friend said she had time and would like to go too so off we went.

The Christmas Place is a large store in a warehouse style building. When we pulled in it didn’t look like much but you know the old saying “never judge a book by it’s cover” and that certainly applies here.

As soon as you step inside the magic begins. There is an enormous display window with toy trains and volcanoes and dragons and planes. I’m told it’s a permanent exhibit. As newer pieces come out they are added and the older pieces are retired. When the display was completely dismantled a few years ago for an upgrade it took a full year to put it back in place!

We passed a room full of animated Santa’s and reindeer but decided to pass that by for now and go back to it before we left. Heading straight through shelves of lights and ornaments we followed a sign to “outdoor displays”. Here the outdoor panoramas were set up and activated so you could see how they would look on your lawn. It was a marvelous room.

Back in the main store we passed rows of mangers and crèches until the store opened up again to a Fudge shop and café. The decorations were beautiful with simulated dripping icicles!

This was located next to Santa Claus which was the only place we couldn’t take pictures. That’s because they offer photos with Santa for a very reasonable price. The Santa was quite authentic looking too!

More shelves of sparkling ornaments followed and there was an elf doing a trapeze act on the ceiling!

Ornaments gave way to garlands of all types and then we were at the back of the store and the Christmas Tree Room. Beautiful!

So much to see , so little time.

We back tracked back to the room we’d skipped. It was great saving it for last because it was filled with animated figures that did not disappoint!

While I waited for my friend to check out, I chatted with one of the employees. She said the store has been opening annually since 1983. They open in mid October and stay open until Christmas Eve. No after Christmas sales here. This year they are closing at 6pm on Christmas Eve and won’t reopen until mid October of 2011.

It’s a great place to visit even if you don’t need any decorations but if you are looking for that special ornament or string of lights for your porch, I’d make this my first stop.

This is not a paid advertisement J They don’t even know I’m sharing this!