Hatton Country World Enchanted Christmas

Yesterday we took a little trip to Warwickshire to take in the Enchanted Christmas experience at Hatton Country World. Hatton is a place I have never visited, so we were all very excited at checking out Christmas in the beautiful countryside. I have to say, we had the most wonderful time.

Hatton is both a child friendly attraction, and a gorgeous shopping village that is full of interesting independent stores. Yesterday, there was also a Christmas market that was stocking everything from jewellery to vintage cake stands. Hatton is set in rolling countryside, and makes the most of this with different activities set out across lots of fields, from mini assault courses to a JCB yard full of mini ride on trucks and complete with petrol pumps. There are also lots of different parks, including a sand pit full of large diggers and trucks that Joe loved, and also plenty of animals scattered around the place, from farm animals, to Alpaca’s and birds of prey. There is so much to see and do.

Of course, being Christmas time, the big attraction at Hatton at the moment is the Enchanted Christmas features, which have a beautiful grotto at their centre piece. The grotto is busy and there are queues, so I would recommend heading to the grotto early on in your visit when the queues are much shorter. The grotto itself is very pretty, filled with polar bears, a snow-covered bi-plane that fascinated all the children waiting to see Santa, and a variety of penguins, elves and Christmas trees. It is also snowing in the grotto which is another nice touch.

The visit to Santa itself is rather brief, but Santa is friendly and jovial, and addresses all children by their name. What makes this experience different from others is that the children are given a key to Santa’s toy shop and are then allowed to choose their own presents from Santa’s toy shop. The toys are a decent standard – Joe chose a magic kit and was really pleased with it, and all the other children were having a great time perusing the toys, the choice is good and is suitable for all ages.

There are lots of other nods to Christmas all around the park. There are Christmas stories in the very festive ‘Scales and tales area’, whilst the guinea pig world is now a mini winter wonderland (another of Joe’s favourites). The animal feeding area was popular, but I was so overwhelmed to see a baby lamb being born- a totally unreal experience that basically made my day. There were also different shows throughout the day in the theatre including magic and puppet shows, these made a nice respite from the gloriously bright, but oh so cold day.

We finished our day with a look around the shopping village and market, where we were able to buy some beautiful pieces, from Gisela Graham Christmas decorations, to a vintage cake stand. We also enjoyed tried some local sausages and delicious fudge (and yes, some of the fudge then came home.). A trip for mulled wine at the tea room rounded off a pretty wonderful day for all.