MICHIGAN: CHRISTmas wonderland

Pick a colour, any colour and  you'd find a huge collection of decorations of all shapes and sizes. This was just one tiny selection of the blue baubles.

To visit Bronners CHRISTmas Wonderland just outside Frankenmuth, you really need to be a fan of all things festive. It is one HUGE store dedicated to Christmas all year round, with apparently over 6,00 kinds of glass ornaments, hundreds of decorated Christmas trees, figurines, tinsel, Bibles and toys. Everything you could ever need to celebrate the big day. Yet it was one of those places could be totally overwhelming, you could easily get lost within a place that big and the products on offer were not that cheap [$9 before tax which is about £5.75ish], although they do offer free personalisation upon a lot of the baubles and stockings. You could get decorations with your job, your age, your name adorned upon them.

The grounds is apparently home to the chapel where the carol Silent Night was first sung in 1818 [thank you to my trusty facts in my Michigan tourist guide]. It was worth a visit, but I don't think i'd be returning quickly within three months of Christmas, perhaps March when its quiet would be a better. But like everything, American's as far as i'm seeing tend to do Christmas bigger and more brasher then the UK. We put our Christmas tree up on Thanks Giving but I've been seeing them up since the day I landed - you'd never get away with that in the UK.

Are you getting into the Christmas spirit?

MICHIGAN: Frankenmuth

Some people would be tempted to claim that Frankenmuth is merely a commercial kitsch destination - being one of the states top visitor attractions this former farming community was settled first by 15 German immigrants in 1845 yet I doubt they would recognise their former homes today. Described as "Little Bavaria" in an Americanised German manner its home to a main street of little "German" shops selling sausages, clocks and cheese, a working mill and brewery, plus it's home to the world's largest Christmas shop  and its infamous chicken dinners. We slightly forgot how much of a tourist destination Frankenmuth actually was especially seeing we were visiting on a Saturday - plus with the holiday season approaching it was super busy. We had a good poke around some of the shops - like the cheese shop, the pet store which practically sold everything [and then some] for your cats and dogs and watched some taffy [a sweet which is pretty much all sugar] and fudge being made. We treated ourselves in getting a 1lb bag of Jelly Belly's in the huge candy store - so yummy!