With three children in the muddy household Christmas is a bit full on! The last few weeks have been a whirl of Nativity plays, parties and preparation. With excitement peaking here’s a look back on how we’ve been celebrating Christmas outdoors.

I try to make each years trip to see Santa a little different, equally for my sanity as for the children’s enjoyment.
This year I managed to book them in to see the big fella at a local nature reserve. After a morning of pouring rain I wasn’t feeling my most festive but thankfully by the time of our slot the day had considerably brightened. Greeted by elves (naturally!) we were given clipboards and asked to follow a short nature trail to gather clues for Santa.

Answers collected it was time to meet Santa. We headed over to a traditional fenland cottage, where we found him sat warming himself by a fire. The children were enchanted by him, he was a rather lovely Santa – getting full marks from me for the genuine white beard….surely it must be the real one? 😊

Santa was a rather patient chap who happily indulged my bat crazy daughter with plenty of bat chat. He’s promised to try very hard to get her a bat detector for Christmas! After the giving of gifts (three the same – no arguments, phew!) the children were welcome to spend time creating natural, Christmas crafts. Wreaths, cards and decorations. Team muddy took to this a little too well and indulged themselves in a craft marathon. My apologies to all Wicken Fen elves who may have missed a lunch break…..😁