Seeing Santa Safely & Strolling in the snow

Now that we’re on the other side of Thanksgiving and a couple of days into leftovers, it’s high time to start talking Christmas around these parts!

As we adjust our seasonal plans with COVID prevention in mind, we still wanted to keep up our tradition of taking the kids for visit and picture with Santa.

Thankfully our local Bass Pro Shop came to the rescue with a Santa village complete with ample COVID safety precautions. We had a reserved time slot, temperature checks at entry, social distancing and masks required in line, and Santa himself wore a mask and sat behind plexiglass. We also made sure to schedule our visit for the first time-slot of the day and before the hoards of holiday shoppers would descend. None of these measures is perfect, but in concert gave me a lot of confidence that the 15 minutes we spent in the building were okay.

And even with the enhanced precautions, the kids still had a great experience, they got to talk to Santa, and Charlie especially was so excited to tell him what was on his list this year while Magnus wanted to ask him questions about his elves.

This year we opted for matching Christmas Pajamas and Hunter boots instead of anything fancy, which worked well because after our visit with Santa we bundled up and hit the hiking trail for 3.5 miles of fun with a touch of snow.