Christmas Magic - Lights & Music in the Garden

Milner Gardens & Woodland
www.milnergardens.org

The annual Christmas festival of lights is held at Milner Gardens, which was the summer home of Veronica Milner. We were treated to over 2 miles of festive lights, Christmas displays, live music, refreshments, story telling, Santa Claus and the Teddy Bear Cottage.

We arrived after dark, at about 6.30pm and went under an archway of lights which lit our way in the pitch dark, through the trees and the grounds.

It was very magical and as we looked up through the tall pine trees surrounding us, we could see a sky full of stars.

We first came across the Gardener's cottage, a small wooden building which had been filled with teddies for the children to look at. There was a raffle to guess how many teddies were in the room.

The path led down through the forest to the summer house, where minstrels were playing and singing yule tide songs. We could see them through the windows of the house, before we went in

The house was a modest size and laid out with lots of historical artifacts belonging to the past owners, Apparently even Princess Diana visited at one time! One of the rooms was being used as a tea shop, there was a gift shop and a room where children were being read a story.



We sat and listened to the singers for a while enjoying the warm house.



We walked around the outside of the house and could hear the ocean, which the property fronts.

The temperature was very cold, and after the warmth of the house, it felt even colder, so we carried on along the lighted patch in search of Santa's grotto. We did eventually find him covered in a heap of children, all awaiting their turn to tell him what they wished for Christmas.

We didn't wait to make our wish, for one thing his knees didn't look strong enough for us! We walked on through the trees, listening to the little ones getting very excited as the made their way through the lights to the magic kingdom.