Christmas Around The World

When Christmas time comes I work hard to teach my kids the REAL meaning behind the season. I also try to teach my children about how other countries celebrate Christmas differently then we do. A perfect way to do that is to visit the Christmas Around The World exhibit at Meijer Garden’s.

We visit Fredrick Meijer Gardens frequently during the spring and summer. I have always had great intentions of going to their wonderful Christmas exhibit, but things always get busy during the holidays, surgeries come up, or little ones are to colicky to bring out in public 🙁 . This year was different however, we decided to visit in the week before Christmas with some of our very best friends and we actually made it! It was quite busy for our group of 13, but we managed to get through it without loosing anyone 😀 .

Be prepared for tons of pictures. I narrowed it down quite a bit, but this still ended up being a photo loaded post! Enjoy!

Christmas Around The World ~ Christmas Trees

Australian Christmas Tree

Slovak Republic Christmas Tree

Brazilian Christmas Tree

Hungarian Christmas Tree

Polish Christmas Tree

Greece Christmas Tree

Swedish Christmas Tree

Mexican Christmas Tree

Russian Christmas Tree

Ireland Christmas Tree

Ukrainian decorated Christmas Tree

English Decorated Christmas Tree

Finland Christmas Tree

Native American Christmas Tree

Original Dickens Carolers

Nativity Scenes From Around The World

Chinese New Year

Parol, A star shaped Christmas lantern from the Philippines

Rangoli (India) made from colored sand.

Menorah for Hanukkah as well as other Jewish items.

Train Garden

Not only do they have over 40 different trees set up with over 400,000 lights from countries around the world, they also have an amazing train garden. This train is the stuff little boys dreams are made of 😉 . It is a huge multi-room train with building, houses, and more set up around multiple rooms.

On top of the big train that travels from room to room above you, there are also a few different smaller trains. The boys thought it was so much fun to see where they started and ended.

The detail put into each of these buildings is really amazing!! Some of them are different buildings around Grand Rapids, others are buildings found in Grand Rapids sister cities.