When you walked into the front door you entered onto the polar express train track. You made a quick stop to enter your name on the nice list to see Santa and then proceeded to the Bishop aka the "Train Conductor" to punch your ticket.
Once inside, a young man dressed as a train worker directed you to your boxcar.
On the stage we had the polar express train displayed with fog billowing out looking as if it was actually moving. Also using white tissue table cloth I made icicles for the front of the stage. Super easy and cheap.
Next, and this is my favorite part. The Young women introduced the Hot Cocoa bar by singing the Hot, Hot, Hot Chocolate song from the Polar Express movie.
Thanks to Mimi's Dollhouse who made the printables for me.
Lastly we opened up the Sweet Shoppe where kids filled their pj clothed tummies will all sorts of goodies...
To entertain the little children we had polar express games on each table to keep them entertained until the program started.
The program started with a special elf reading the Polar Express book as the book was displayed for all to see. After the book ended the Bishop "train conductor" shared his thoughts and tied the Spirit of Christmas with the true meaning of CHRISTmas! It was spiritual and great for the littles. Next the Train workers gathered the children and did a train through out all the tables and led them to line up to see Santa.
Using our "nice list" each family was directed to see Santa...
Jaxon told Santa he wants Mickey Mouse and Buzz for Christmas. He also told him a lot of other stuff that we have no idea what it meant but it sounded good!
As guest exited the event, each kid took away a wooden train whistle and each family took a "santa bell" off the tree.
Lets take a quick reminder of what the room usually looks like...
Yes a lot of work to get it transformed and back again to this in one night for Church the next day but thanks to so many willing to help it went by pretty fast!