Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, MI

I am not a Christmas person. Not really at all. I feel like it's too commercial and some of the good will done during this time of year is just to make up for all the ill will done all year long. In addition to this I have worked in retail for 15 years. It's hard for me to enjoy it at all, especially when I miss a lot of time with friends and family because I'm busy working.

Don't get me wrong, there are redeeming qualities about Christmas and the entire concept of it is beautiful. I love midnight mass, advent calenders, and the lights are pretty to look at and they make the extra winter darkness more tolerable.

Randy loves it. He turns into a 3 year old and wants the lights, the gifts, the shopping. I suppose this balances my pessimism and bitterness to the season, or at least makes an effort of it.

So, for Randy's birthday this year I let him pick what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to Frankenmuth and see Bronner's. He had talked about this before and I have always been reluctant, but because it was his birthday I agreed to the two and a half hour drive.

When we arrived Randy was relieved they were open until 9 pm. We thought they closed at 5:30pm and we arrived at 4pm. I was a little discouraged because I didn't want to spend more than an hour and a half in this Christmas wonderland.

The first place we stopped was at the Christmas villages. There were dozens of these tiny little villages. They had trains and little trees, minute little people ice skating on itty bitty fake ponds, and of course real working baby street lights.  On top of this there were dozens of different countries represented in bulbs.

It was truly a wonderland. There were more Christmas ornaments than I could stomach. The entire store is broken down into sections. It is placed on 27 acres of land. The store itself is about the size of 1 1/2 football fields. It was enormous.  They also have free personalization's, so if you are getting bulbs for special people you can have their names and the year put on them. 

After 2 hours of browsing through Christmas ornaments, tree toppers, and a lot of advent calenders (My favorite part of Christmas) we cashed out and decided to have dinner. We went to Zender's. Everything is German, Bavarian, there was an entire menu of really tasty food to chose from and there is also unlimited home style menu, which is really the best value if you are eating in a large group. We tried it, there were so many side dishes and the fried chicken was amazing.  There was soup, then breads, some different kinds of salads. When they served the chicken it came with dressing, potatoes, noodles with breading, and squash. It was delish. After the meal dessert was either a Sherbet or chocolate ice cream. I had the Sherbet.

It was well worth the trip, even if you don't like Christmas. The downtown area was amazing and no pictures could even do it justice.


Where we went:

http://www.bronners.com/category/christmas-ornaments.do?nType=1&utm_campaign=lv14&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=bad

http://www.zehnders.com/