– Carefree Christmas Festival December 2013-
The sixth annual Christmas Festival was held December 13-15, 2013 in the Carefree Town Center at the Sanderson Lincoln Pavilion. This is one of my favorite events each year and offers something for everybody.
The meandering pathways surrounding the Events Stage are lined with booths selling clothing, jewelry, art, food items and more. It is always a great way to find gifts for family members and friends, while having a fun time.
My first stop was the fabulous “Food Row” that served everything from tacos to caramel corn. Many of the local restaurants had booths, as well as some specialty foods vendors.
This year they had a very special, new booth set up with Christmas items that provided so much fun for everyone. Those Animals were there and brought their motorized riding animals for children (and adults!) The animals are set to go at a very low speed and they told me the animals can be rented for private parties as well.
The Christmas Festival is one of my favorite events for families and children as there is a large area dedicated to ‘little ones.’ They bring in 35 tons of snow from the North Pole and set up a sled run. As you can see, the saucers are large enough to fit adult and a younger child, resulting in a very fun and safe ride. There’s plenty of snow for snowball fights as well.
Across the way, they again set up the huge “bouncy house” maze for younger children to climb through until they get to the slide which ends the trek. This area is where they also had the younger children riding the motorized animals from Those Animals and, boy, were they having fun. They all had a look of supreme satisfaction as they were being allowed to ride alone on their very tame animals.
Another great event for the children is the Santa Express train that runs through town and ends up back at the Town Center just a few steps away from the Santa Claus house.
On Saturday evening at 6 PM, they held the Electric Light Parade which was sponsored by the Carefree Resort and Conference Center. It’s fairly dark here in the desert at 6 PM at this time of year and the parade was filled with twinkling lights, elves and Santa for all to enjoy.
Throughout the day, different groups of singers and dancers performed on the Sanderson Lincoln Pavilion stage. In the evenings, they also held swing and big band concerts as well as folk musicians singing traditional Christmas favorites.
P.S. – I couldn’t resist taking a quick picture of a Santa at one of the booths decked out in his Cowboy outfit!
