A Boston Holiday Tradition

Enchanted Village is a Boston tradition dating back to 1940. My father in law remembers going to see the display as a child in the Jordan Marsh store in downtown Boston. I first went a few years ago with Mike's family so that we could partake in the Christmas fun. Last year, the village was bought by a local furniture chain, Jordan's, and is set up in one of their stores for 3 months of the year. We thought Dylan would enjoy seeing it so we went to it a couple of weeks ago.

As a set built 70 years ago, the storefronts are from another era and the "animation" of the characters is very rudimentary. Even so, there's a sense of nostalgia to it (even though these types of scenes predate my life) and a warm, innocent, holiday feel to the set up that makes it very enjoyable.

Dylan was having trouble with his naps that day (as seems to be a recurring theme over the last couple of weeks) so he was pretty tired going into it. So, we saw a lot of the deer in the headlights look but the eyes were definitely taking it all in and the pointing finger at all that interested him confirmed he truly enjoyed it.

The cutest addition to the set that Jordan's contributed was snow. Christmas music was constantly playing, of course, but when Bing Crosby's White Christmas came up, machines revved up in several areas around the set and bubbles started falling from the sky. All the kids (and parents) loved that!

"Snow" Falling

It was a nice, low key, Christmas activity and it was free....a win, win, win situation. That means we'll likely visit again next year.