We all hurried around trying to get ready as we had planned to meet some of our special friends who were also going on the trip with us. The meeting time was 5.45am. We took at short walk to the airport from the hotel and checked ourselves in. It was then time to get some breakfast and in some cases a few drinks (at that time in the morning!!).

Our flight was scheduled to take off around 8.30am, but it was a little late taking off, everyone was very excited and we all sung Christmas carols on the plane on the way there. The flight was approximately 3 hours, so some of us caught up on some well needed sleep.

We finally arrived at Lapland airport around midday UK time, which was 2pm in Lapland, it was quite amazing as it was pitch black, they don’t get much daylight during the winter months. It made you feel like you had jet lag. We came off the plane to a very snowy tarmac and made our way to the terminal building. To greet us outside the terminal was a very large reindeer, everyone loved this!!

Our next adventure was getting into our snow suits, which were all provided for us, but as the weather wasn’t as cold as it normally is we did find them a little warm!! Normally the weather is around -10c, but on this day it was actually warmer than the UK at 5c.

Back on the coach and off to Lapland we went. It was a magical place with so much to do. We were there for about 6 hours, which was plenty of time to do all the activities. We started off having something to eat in their little cabin. It was lovely spaghetti Bolognese, berry juice and biscuits.

 

Then it was all go, we took Bethany on a little ride on the toboggans, and some of the bigger children were sledging down a big slope. We went on the reindeer ride, which was a bit scary at some points as our reindeer had his own idea of where to go, and kept banging into the reindeer in front, it was a bit of a battle, but we got round in on piece, Bethany loved the reindeer, plus we also got a chance to stroke them. We also went on a husky ride, this was very fast, and they also wanted to do their own thing. Once the huskies had gone round the track, before we could get off they decided they hadn’t quite finished and went racing off into the woods, with us attached on the sleigh at the back, finally the keeper managed to get them to stop, and we got out pretty swiftly!!! There was also ice sculpting, ice hockey, jet bikes, and many more exciting things to do.

The highlight of the day was going to see Father Christmas; each family had a personal visit with the man himself. We were taken on a sleigh ride to his house, the elves greeted us at the door and we went into his house, it was nice and warm with a huge Christmas tree and lots of presents. By this point Bethany was a bit apprehensive to say the least!!! She didn’t want to go in at all and was very scared of the big Man!! She kept saying she wanted to go home. Father Christmas gave us her present and also a very special present with extra magic dust on for a very special little boy, and friend Spencer Javi Roberts who was unable to come with us on this trip as he was very poorly, his Neuroblastoma had come back. While we were trying to thank Father Christmas for the presents, Bethany was screaming, the only thing that seemed to calm her down was being given Spencer’s present. We were then taken back on the sleigh to the main resort area and we opened her present. It was a lovely reindeer, which she treasured.

After all this excitement and fun if was time to head back home, as you can imagine everyone was pretty tired by this point, and we had a 20 minute coach journey back to the airport and we were able to get straight on the plane home.

 

The plane journey home was a little less hectic than the one going out, all the children were exhausted!!! This made for quite a nice quiet journey home.

We arrived back in the UK around midnight, and then we headed back to the hotel for some well needed sleep.

 

 

 

We all flaked out pretty quickly and fortunately Bethany did sleep all the way through the night and woke around 9am, which was brilliant!! Off to breakfast we went, very nice too!!!

We will never forget this magical trip which is all thanks to the Emily Ash Trust, it put a sparkle back into our lives after such a horrendous year, and certainly ended the year on a positive note!!