A summary of December 2021

Merry Christmas everyone. As you may well imagine, when you have a herd of reindeer, December is a busy time of the year. And this year has been no different. In this blog, I’ll provide a summary of what happens at the Reindeer Centre throughout December.

We’ve been having plenty of ‘Christmas Fun’ in the Paddocks and Exhibition area. This has taken place every December weekend as well as every day this past week in the build up to Christmas Day. Here we’ve had Santa Claus in his cosy, fire-lit grotto as well as arts and crafts, a special Christmas activity booklet for the kids to complete and plenty of herder talks out in the paddocks alongside the reindeer. We hope you’ve enjoyed chatting to us herders and seeing Santa!

The BBQ hut warm and cosy, ready for Father Christmas!
The main man himself! Delighted to have him join us every weekend in December.

The weather hasn’t always played ball with our plans. In fact, the start of December brought some pretty wild weather. We had over 10cm of snow. The reindeer were delighted and could often be seen dancing with joy, which can be seen in the video below. However, the Ski Road leading up to the car park had to be closed on occasion due to dangerous, icy conditions and a few Hill Trips were subsequently cancelled.

Reindeer dancing with joy in the snow!
Blizzard conditions led to several Hill Trips being cancelled earlier in the month.

The snow melted about halfway through the month due to a mild spell of weather and we now have just a bit of frost on the ground in all areas except the very tops of the mountains. The weather didn’t put you hardy folks off visiting though and we had lots of visitors wrapping up warm and braving the elements on our hill trips. In fact, the December weekend hill trips were all booked up before December even started!

December is also the busiest month for our adoption scheme. As such we’ve been wading through seemingly never-ending torrents of incoming adoptions. All the herders have gallantly pulled long shifts of office work and about a week before Christmas Day we managed to paddle through the swell and get through the backlog of adoptions. No adoption was waiting more than a couple of days after being received so we hope that you receive your packages in a timely manner. During the busiest times, herders were writing letters whilst on tour and we recruited help from Linda and Tina who have been fantastic at writing letters for us from their homes.

Fiona and Ruth writing letters on an event, whilst waiting for people to visit the reindeer.

One of the other events that happens over November and December is that a selection of trained reindeer may go out on tour around the nation. Events are often relatively local, however we reached as far south as Windsor this year and went as far away as Llanelli in South Wales. Training for the reindeer occurs throughout summer and really hots up during the autumn. The reindeer may be in a display pen or participating in a sleigh procession. It varies from event to event. The team and their herders will stay at overnight bases throughout the UK, and they will travel in big lorries with lots of space which means that the reindeer will often lie down on the straw when travelling or as some of you may have seen, they may also lie down when they’re in a pen. They like to relax whenever possible. Our calves have even had a bit of exposure to Christmas events and overall, they’ve been absolute champions.

One of our Christmas lorries on the road, containing two herders and six reindeer (usually 4 adult males and 2 calves).
Bond, Clouseau, Holy Moley, Trilby and Akubra lying down in a pen in Lancaster earlier this month.

Colin D (we have two Colins!) has clocked up the most miles of all of us herders and that’s good news for the rest of us as he produces the funniest videos. Here is Colin narrating Dr Seuss’ gardening skills. Stay tuned for more of Colin’s videos in a future blog/social media posts…

Colin Delap and Dr Seuss with a special Christmas offer…

We are still open as usual until the 6th of January 2022. The Centre will then close until the 12th of February, re-opening in time for the February half-term. The entire herd will soon be free-ranging either on the Cairngorms or the Cromdales, fingers crossed for another cold and snowy winter. Thank you for all our wonderful visitors, supporters, blog-readers, and adopters throughout 2021. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, from all the reindeer herders!

Ben

Christmas Fun

Well, there’s no escaping it now. There’s only a month until C-day and here at the Centre we are getting geared up for another busy festive season. We have already munched a fair few mince pies and started reviewing the different mulled wine options available from supermarkets (in the evenings!) as we have been doing Christmas events for the past month, but now the Centre is getting her makeover and will be sparkle-tastic for the next few weeks.

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The BBQ shed with her festive lights

Here at the Centre we are still running the daily Hill Trip at 11am. The numbers on the trips are limited and we are unable to take bookings (because we would probably lose them! and also the weather is too unpredictable) so if you would like to join us on one of our trips please arrive at the Centre nice and early on the morning of your chosen day (Editor’s note: We now do take advance bookings). We try to take the T every day but occasionally the weather can be against us and we might have to cancel. If we do then we will post up on Facebook on the morning to let you all know, or you can call to check. If you are planning on joining us just remember that the weather can be pretty fierce and you will be outside for 1.5 hours, maybe more, and there is no shelter up on the hill. Please make sure everyone in your group is dressed up nice and warmly with lots of layers, hats, scarves and gloves and please ensure you all have waterproof coats too. They are not only brilliant for keeping you dry but help to keep the wind out. On that note, waterproof trousers are really helpful too so it’s always a good idea to pack them if you can.

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Our wee tree and board waiting for Christmas wishes

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Sparkly Paddocks

Down here at the Centre, Christmas is exploding. The paddocks will be decorated in our usual over-the-top way and we will have lots of activities for kids to do on the weekends in December and the week running up to Christmas. A chubby man in a red suit will also make an appearance! Of course, we will also have our lovely reindeer to see, so if you don’t fancy a walk into the mountains or if they weather is just a bit too horrible for wee ones, the paddocks are a great alternative, and there is a heated BBQ shed which is lovely and cosy too.

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Imogen

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