Gaylord Texan Christmas Extravaganza

I found out that I had won a trip to the Gaylord Texan on December second and the trip had to be taken before January 2nd. Add in all our other previously scheduled Christmas events and that only left us with this past Sunday and Monday open to go. This gave me little time to research what there was to do there or really figure out any kind of plan. I think the short notice helped keep expectations low. Not paying for the incredibly expensive room at the fancy resort gave us some wiggle room to do more fun activities and get fun things to bring back with us. There would have been no way that we could have afforded this lovely experience so it was truly a wonderful Christmas surprise.

Our fun started on Sunday afternoon when we arrived at The Gaylord Texan. Let me just start by saying Gaylord and Texan are two words that do not bring up warm fussy feelings for me, being a Sooner from Oklahoma. Growing up my father use to say the state lizard was E.K. Gaylord, but I digress. The hotel is a huge combination of conference halls, a shopping center, gardens/atrium, spa, and restaurants. The huge gardens and restaurant area in the middle were gorgeously decorated with all sorts of huge Christmas decorations, lights, miniature village and train, eight foot tall ginger bread house, Santa Clause, lots of huge Christmas trees, Nutcrackers, and little Elves who were hidden all around the resort for us to find. We started by taking in all the Christmas sights. The boys had no idea what to expect and they loved all of it. Zane dubbed the big atrium/garden area "Christmas Wonderland,"  and it was truly gorgeous. As with all things in life, the whole experience was made a million times better because I got to see it all through my children's eyes.

I should mention that Zane insisted we bring Jingle and Jangle on the trip with us. It has been a long time since I have traveled with either of them and haven't gone anywhere with Jingle Boy since he magically reappeared a few years ago. The stress of having the beloved, resurrected, Jingle Boy under my possession, well actually under my two year old's possession, for three days was intense. I know the wrath and devastation that would be waiting for us if we lost either of them, so there were frequent Jingle and Jangle checks, not unlike passport checks when you are traveling abroad. After they toured the beautiful lobby/gardens once they had to stay in the room until we went on a new adventure. Zane was correct in his prediction that they would love it there because they are both elves. Their favorite part was the huge Ginger Bread house, which I am convinced they could happily retire to at anytime. As a side note Zane and Rowan both asked why there was only a mommy gingerbread person and not a daddy. What smart little boys I have!

My four little boys in front of one huge Christmas tree. 

My prize package included tickets to the Ice exhibit at the hotel. This exhibit is done yearly and made by ice carvers from China who are brought in to create all sorts of gigantic Christmas scenes out of ice. This year's theme was Christmas Around the World. The line to Ice on Sunday was unbelievably long, but we got to go to front of this insane line since we were hotel guests. Unfortunately that just got us into the big coral type holding area where there was plenty of more waiting, to get our parkas and then to actually get into the exhibit. Zane, sans real nap, did not handle this well and was having a complete meltdown by the time we entered the three degrees Fahrenheit exhibit. He then was freezing and couldn't function so we sprinted through the gorgeous ice exhibit. I wish I had gotten to get a little closer look or waited to go through this until Monday when there was no line at all, but such is life. Rowan was a champ through all the waiting, I should add. Bless the lovely lady who offered to take our family photo on the huge ice bear chair. Don't be fooled by happy Zane in front of the huge ice Nativity scene. He was crying and whining the entire time. Not a great start to the trip.

 While Daddy picked up our ticket the boys and I steered clear of the huge crowd by sitting in this window sill. Zane also took this downtime to work on his fitness, doing some push ups.

 Ice Santa

 JB and his cousin, the huge ice elf!

 Rowan with the Scottish ice boy, for Grandma!

 I very pouty Zane with his native Swiss ice people.

 My favorite part, a huge ice dove, gorgeous.

 Don't we all look happy and pulled together??? Don't so much in reality!

We regrouped in the room and had a successful, somewhat uneventful, rest of the evening. The highlight for the boys was probably swimming. I swim all the time and have gotten over being a fat lady in a swimming suit, so I was really taken a back when I realized I was the only female in the swimming pool, not just adult female, children included. All the little girls were sitting on the side with their mothers or by themselves while dads swam with their brothers. What a terribly shocking observation. Get in the pool mom's, no one cares what you look like and your daughters are missing out, not to mention probably forming terrible body issues of their very own in the process. Ok off my soap box. The hotel was gorgeous at night as well so we took another tour of the atrium after the sun went down and everything was fully lit up and sparkling. My favorite decoration at night were the giant snowflakes, beautiful!!

 

Gary brought the boys matching PJs, from what I can only assume is Gary's new clothing line, Clothes by Gary. The were perfect for our Christmas adventure.

Monday morning we were up and at em way too early, but turns out being up early meant we had the beautiful atrium area all to ourselves, perfect for picture taking. It was also perfect for elf hunting. We got an Elf on the Shelf book to to help us find all the elves in the resort and figure out their names. Once we figured out all their names and completed all the puzzles in the book we got a prize. We spent the morning finding all the elves, who were doing lots of silly things of course. Zane loved this, as you might imagine and it was great fun solving the mysteries.

 I did have Zach take a few pictures of me, so historians would see I did actually go on the trip as well.

 Family Selfie!!

Of course the my Sooner born son had to represent in Texas, horns down, of course!!

The rest of the morning was spent at Legoland, which was maybe five minutes up the road. It was very cool, think Willie Wonka but with Legos. There were little rides to ride, a VIP pass booklet to get stamped at each activity, things to climb on, lots of places to build with Legos, a short little movie that included getting rained and snowed on, and my personal favorite a Lego version of the hotel where we were staying. Zane had a blast, not so sure about Rowan who was too little for most of the rides. I don't think I would have driven down just for that, but since we were already there it was a perfect outing.

 The Lego Gaylord Texan!

 Yes, JB got to go to Legoland, don't worry.

After much needed naps Zach and Zane went snow tubing inside while Rowan and I scoped out suveniors for everyone. Rowan landed on a puppy, not shocking at all, while Zane opted out of getting a penguin and got Rudolph instead, very shocking. We also got a Gary Christmas orniment and Peep Santa orniments (which I adore). There were lots of other random things we could have paid to do, like making a ginger bread houses or eating cookies with Mrs. Clause, but I think we hit all the big things and our schedule was pretty jam packed.

Monday night we opted out of crazy expensive, not so good dinner, at the hotel and went to see The Good Dinosaur in one of the movie theatures where you can order crazy expensive not so good food and be served during your movie. It was definitely more fun than eating at the hotel, but I'm pretty sure just as expensive. This is one of those things I would never do here, but it was a very fun, cool experience that I can justify while on vacation.

By Monday evening both boys were a little stir crazy and bouncing off the walls of our tiny hotel room. This was the first hotel stay where they got to share a bed and they loved it. There was lots of giggling, wrestling, jumping, and tons of stuffed animals between the two of them. It was very entertaining watching them trying to go to sleep, less entertaining when they were up giggling at 6am.

Needless to say Zach and I were ready to come home by Tuesday morning. We had breakfast and took one last scenic walk through the atrium before packing up and heading back North. A lovely family, with two little boys, took our picture in Santa's sleigh and we returned the favor. Very adorable stuff.

At the end of the trip, out of all the fancy things, beautfiul decorations, and fun activities we did, my hands down favorite part of the trip was watching Zane interact with the people at the hotel. Specifically the way he interacted with the people who worked there, who you know are taught to try to be invisible. Don't talk to the guest, blend in, don't distract from the beauty. The gardeners uniforms are literally were camoflaughed so that you might not notice them planting plants, picking up trash, or cleaning out ponds. None of this stopped Zane from saying hi and having conversations with every gardener, housekeeper, doorman, waiter, or valea in the building. He asked one gardener why she was cleaning out the little pond. She explained to him that people had been throwing coins in it that could hurt the fish. He talked to everyone, greeting them with a pleasant hello, how are you, or those are pretty flowers, always catching everyone off guard with his kind words.

I know that most of this can be attributed to his God given personality, very outgoing, never met a stranger, talking to everyone, but I can see that it goes beyond on that. He truly likes to make people happy, to see them smile. And he brought lots of smiles to people who I am sure can go an entire day without anyone speaking to them. My favorite instance of Zane's kindness came as we were walking out to our car on the final day. An old man came to help us load up our luggage cart. I'm sure he's done this is his whole life, but there was little Zane helping him load up the cart. Once everything was all loaded up Zane helped push the cart all the way to the car, infront of Zach and I, having a lovely conversation with this old man. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen and I might have teared up a little bit with pride for my sweet boy.

 We had an amazing time and I'm hoping at least Zane made some life long memories there. It was definitely something I would have never been able to afford or known about had I not won a trip. I loved being able to expose the boys to knew "fancy" things as Zane called it. It definitely made our Christmas a little bit Merrier this year!! Many thanks to Metro Family Magazine for giving us this wonderful experience.