Winter Wonderland at Center Parcs

Last weekend, we visited Center Parcs. I had never been before and as the last few months have been quite hectic, we decided to book a weekend away to spend some quality time as a family.

We had so much fun whilst we were there and I will blog more about the rest of our trip another time,  but I wanted to tell you all about the fabulous Winter Wonderland.

The spectacular tree made it all seem so real, and as Christmas songs rang out through the trees I wanted to cry a bit with excitement.

The lovely and enigmatic reindeers, all so cute and really added to the atmosphere, anyone remember the reindeers in Santa Clause the movie? I loved them so much!

We visited Santa, it was obvious where he was as he had left his sleigh and reindeers on the roof of the grotto.

Me & my hubby drank mulled wine and ate mince pies whilst listening to the Christmas songs.

The tree was really beautifully decorated and looked great in the day and at night.

Along the route from the village square to Santa's grotto were lots of little huts with beautiful characters to watch.

The trees were decked with snow and there was even a snow machine.

We must have walked past the little houses a dozen times, and each time we stopped to look.

All around the village square and main buildings there were things to see and watch, each one as magical as the next.

As we watched the lights for one last time, it really got us into the Christmas spirit, yes it was early but sometimes you need the magic, sometimes you need to experience the lights and sounds of Christmas that little bit earlier.

Visiting the Major Oak

Nottinghamshire has a lot of history, one of it's most famous residents of course, was Robin Hood. If you are visiting the area then one of the most likely places to be on your must see list is the Major Oak. This beautiful piece of forest is filled with the most majestic oak trees and the one everyone wants to see is the Major Oak.

At between 800-1000 years old, it is now held up by supports, but this is only to help it live longer! On our visit there, we learnt about oak trees, how they take 300 years to grow, live for about 300 years and then die over 300 years, the supports on the Major Oak help this process and mean the tree stays here for people to enjoy for much longer.

Oak trees are beautiful, the shapes they form and their leaves are unmistakeable, some of the older trees in this forest have bands on them to help them stay alive.

We looked at the tree stumps to see if we could figure out how old the trees had been when they fell, there were lots of information points, to help us learn about the wildlife and we saw lots of fungi.

Some of the stumps had been made into fairy houses, we loved this sign that told you not to poke things into the trees trunk as it is a home to many little creatures.

On a few of the trees there were these fab faces made from clay, feathers, twigs and leaves, we are definitely going to give these a try!

Onto the major oak itself, you can't really tell from the pictures the size of the tree, but believe me,  it is big.

The trunks on oak trees are hollow yet the outside keeps on growing, the hole in the trunk here an adult could get through standing up, the reason for the fibre glass on part of the trunk was due to some ignorant person trying to burn it down and this will stop any mold setting in.

This weekend there was an archer talking about the bow and arrows that Robin Hood and the knights of the crusades would have used, he gave an awesome display of archery.

He then went on to tell us about the different arrows, allowed the children to try holding the sword and went on to tell us about the battle of Agincourt. It was really interesting and gave an insight into the world of Robin Hood.

Linking up to Magic Moments on The Oliver's Madhouse