Lost in Christmas Wonderland

We had the pleasure of going to visit my inlaws this weekend in beautiful Saginaw, Michigan. To be honest, I'm not a fan of that part of the State. Flat, relatively featureless and depressing would be about the only compliments I could give. But it was great for the kids to see Grandpa and Grandma, and we haven't actually been to their home in Saginaw in probably 3 or 4 years (we visit them regularly at their cottage Up North in the Summer).

But whenever we visit that area around Christmas time, usually someone suggests the idea of taking the kids over to Frankenmuth to go to Bronner's (because there's nothing else to do in that gawd-awful area). I've you've never visited Bronner's, I almost guarantee you've seen the billboards along the highway advertising the year-round Christmas mega-store open "361 days a year!"

The place is mammoth, and they keep adding on to it. I found on google that Bronner's is now 320,000 square feet in total floor space. That's twice as large as the typical Super Target store (which the one in Cascade in GR is about as close as we have to a Super Target in Grand Rapids). All of it devoted to Christmas. You can check out a bird's eye view of it here at Bing Maps. You need stockings? Thousands of them. Trees and wreathes? 20,000. Christmas bulbs? (the largest section of the store) I'm guessing they have 500,000 of them. They even put you on a waiting list to see Santa. What's more mesmerizing than the floor space is the ceiling space. They have shelves that run along every ceiling of the store crammed FULL of Christmas characters.


The place can really give you a splitting migraine after about an hour. Which leads me to my "lost" story. So we get there early (about 9:30) to beat the crowds, but my wife and I are badly looking for our 2nd coffee at that time of day. I find out where the food court/cafe is (no joke) and head off to section 8a.1 to get some coffee, with the plan to meet back up at the Christmas bulb personalization station in section 12. After getting two coffees, and reaching section 12, no sign of the fam at section 12..

Unlike your typical Target store, which is set up in a grid format with wide aisles, Bronner's is set up in a fun (sarc) nick nack store kinda layout on steroids. So basically there's no way to see down any section more than about 20 yards. Add to that the ever increasing level of crowds and let the fun ensue. Especially when you have two groups on the move trying to find each other. What's even more maddening is that I left my cell phone at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Oyy vay.

So after wandering around in a complete daze for 20 minutes, holding two hot cups of coffee (with no lids), overstimulated by the whirring, buzzing and lights, one of my daughters spots me and comes running over. Thank God. I seriously was getting to the point where I thought I'd just go hang out by the entrance where we came in, like the group of old guys you always see seated at the malls, and just wait it out. Either that or have an employee announce over the loud-speaker that little Jeffrey was lost and could his family please come get him at the gift wrapping emporium. In retrospect, I probably should have sat with the old guys. I think I would have had more fun shootin the shet with them than navigating the Christmas gauntlet.

Again, don't take my rantings as a reason to stay AWAY from Bronner's and Frankenmuth. Quite the contrary. It's a totally bizarre sort of Disneyesque town that seems to get more bizarre every time we go. Think Traverse City meets Swiss Miss. In addition to Bronner's, you can feast on factory production "family style" chicken dinners at Zehnder's. Or see the MASSIVE Bavarian Inn that they keep adding on to and adding on to every few years, capped off with a giant bavarian styled "lifestyle center" on Main Street. But make sure you save time after all of your sight-seeing to hit the fairly new Frankenmuth Brewery. You're gonna need it.

(I swear my entry about opening gifts in my family is coming).