Leavenworth, a Christmas Wonderland

Colby Kershaw, First Year Journalism Student

Christmas trips to anywhere are special. Some ideas are the coast, great wolf lodge, or if you’re looking for somewhere perfect for the season; Leavenworth WA, may be the perfect place for you. Leavenworth is a mountainous Bavarian village. The entire town is decorated with lights and most buildings in the town look like they were stripped straight from a movie. Stone and wood cabins litter the town. Walking around the town during this season is like walking through a winter wonderland. 

When you enter the town of Leavenworth you are greeted by the decor of the entire town. Everywhere has a medieval look like it was a renaissance fair. Even most of the signs in town are in a medieval font, even the McDonald’s is decorated to match the town’s aesthetic. Downtown is filled with tiny shops and restaurants. Each has their own flair and many souvenirs.

When the Christmas season comes around the entire town goes all out. Each building, tree, fence and even cars are littered with Christmas lights. Streetlights are barely needed as the lights line every bit of town.

There were a couple restaurants and the one that stood out the most was “München Haus”. It is a German bar and grill that specializes in sausages and brats. The brats were perfect and humongous. Other places of interest were the many hot chocolate stands that are all around town. You can fill up on hot chocolate around any corner for cheap.

For when it snows the entire town becomes twice the town it was. Leavenworth gets a couple inches of snow each year around this season, and when it snows, it really snows. Downtown Leavenworth is the perfect place to take a walk while it snows. The hills in the park are perfect for sledding too. Leavenworth is fairly cheap as well for all of its attractions. The most expensive thing we did was the reindeer farm coming in at $25 per person, and most food bought never was more than $12 per person at most places 

If you love sledding, Leavenworth is the place for you as well. The mountain area surrounding Leavenworth provides many hills to go sledding. All around town and in parks a good hill is only a couple blocks away.

Lastly, my favorite part of Leavenworth was its own reindeer farm. The reindeer farm is a small plot of land a little outside of Leavenworth. Tickets allow a tour of the farm and getting to go into the pen with the reindeer. While there you get  to see and feed all of the reindeer there. They are pretty friendly and who doesn’t want to feed a baby reindeer?

The pictures included in this review are some of the reindeer from the farm. Almost all of them are named after pop culture or Christmas references and the names fit. The largest reindeer at the farm is Stephen. He is the largest male they have had and his antlers are half the size of an average person (5’9”). Some other names that stood out were Elsa and Ana, Comet and my favorite, Forrest.

If you don’t have any plans for Christmas this year, I recommend Leavenworth. It’s a perfect destination for the season and will definitely make some memories for those who go.