Visit Santa's Village

When I was a kid, I would see the Santa’s Village commercial on TV and wanted to go on an adventure. The opportunity never came around until just last year when I took my two boys there for the entire family’s first time! My husband and I try to raise our children to have the most “normal” life possible, even during a pandemic. To accomplish this, we often find ourselves imagining what we would want to do if we were kids our boys’ age. These past couple of years, we’ve also had to add on how to do those things safely and really put our adult imaginations to work, which led us to visiting Santa’s Village at Lake Arrowhead here in Southern California. Our visit was right before the second big pandemic shut down of 2020 in Los Angeles County.

Santa’s Village was very committed to still providing this experience for families during the pandemic. The entire experience sent a wash of nostalgia over me, and, although the trip was intended for the boys, I even found myself excited visiting the “Sweet Shoppe,” snacking on gingerbread people, and admiring the big beautiful Christmas tree.

Beyond the nostalgia, my boys were able to experience the wonder of Christmas the way I always imagined it should be experienced: surrounded by snow-topped buildings with candy canes, bells, and holly adorning every storefront. We made the trip a mini family staycation, and we loved every moment of it. My boys were able to go ice skating for the first time, and – of course – they saw Santa! I wanted them to meet Santa and take a picture with him, even if he was wearing a face shield. The face shield was an indicator of the times, which I felt was important for my kids; when they look back on their childhood, they’ll remember these memories with small signs of the pandemic sprinkled throughout. It’s been a huge part of their lives, even more so than ours because of their young age, and I want them to be able to remember the happy stuff, too.

Our trip to Santa’s Village transported us to a magical place where Christmas and building family memories take priority, so we’re very excited to provide this experience for free to one family!

We love being able to give back to our Hello Rascal Kids community, and we’re grateful that Santa’s Village is providing us with the opportunity to share the magic. We’re going to raffle the experience off to one of our readers who writes to us and tells us why they want to go to Santa’s Village with their family. Get creative with it! We’d even love to see a handwritten letter from one of your rascals. We will share details about this giveaway on our Instagram Page @hellorascalkids

Written by Head Rascal (Ngoc Nguyen Lay), mother of two rascals, ages 6 and 8. (Ages during our visit: 5 and 7)