Dickens' Christmas Festival

The Dickens' Christmas Festival takes place at the Utah State Fairpark. We read about this Christmas activity last year, but didn't get a chance to go. So this year we decided we had to visit for this blog. The advertisement says it resembles Merry Olde England, and we thought it would be fun to take a step back in time for a day.

While there are people in costumes, and a free carriage ride with your entrance fee, we didn't quite catch the spirit of quaint English shops. The buildings were filled with people selling a ton of different products (some of them pretty cool), but it didn't really resemble an English town. It looked more like a mall in the ghetto.

So excited for the carriage ride!

There were some fun things for the kids like dipping candles ($1 or $2), and different dance groups and singers. People were more than willing to let you sample or try their products, so the boys loved testing out the tops in the picture below and other toys. The best part was the free carriage ride. The kids enjoyed it, but they beg you to tip the driver for a 3 minute ride down-and-back, and that's after you pay the $8 gate fee. Father Christmas was there, but you had to pay $20 or so for a picture, which is probably standard. We don't splurge on that sort of thing.

Playing with tops

Dipping candles

Overall, we had a nice relaxing day as a family and the boys were surprisingly good for just a shopping trip. But we won't be doing this activity again. We just don't have the cash to spend ($19/entrance for our family plus $5/parking). And we aren't big shoppers.

Santa's reindeer