Grapevine, Texas, absolutely delivered Christmas this year, as it has every year since the late ’80s, when it first leaned fully into organized holiday cheer. My mom and I chose Grapevine as our meeting point because I was going to be home for the holidays, and it sat nicely in the middle between Ohio and Hawaii. What we didn’t know at the time was that I’d end up on assignment in Snyder, TX, which meant I could actually drive there. A very Texas plot twist.
We stayed at the Gaylord Texan Resort, and that alone could’ve been the whole trip. The first thing I noticed when I walked into the atrium – aside from the aggressive amount of Christmas – was the humidity. Spectacular. I didn’t need lotion the entire stay, which, coming from Hawaii winter standards, felt like a personal win.
The atrium spilled Christmas everywhere. A massive tree and towering nutcrackers anchored the center, the indoor “Riverwalk” was lined with decorated trees, and lights dangled from the ceiling like festive vines. It was beautiful during the day, but nighttime is when the Gaylord really committed. Every hour from 6–10 p.m., the atrium hosted a ten-minute light show set to Christmas music, which also played pretty much nonstop from morning to night.
My definition of a great Christmas destination is a place that looks like Santa Claus threw up, and the Gaylord absolutely nailed it. They also had a long list of holiday activities we barely scratched the surface of: ice skating, a scavenger hunt, and a wildly popular Build-A-Bear situation that was chaos in the best way (for kids, lol.)
What we did do was the ICE! exhibit, which is always impressive to me. This year’s theme was Elf, so we watched the movie the night before, a decision that paid off. Even though I’d seen it before (Mom hadn’t), the refresher made the whole thing more fun. Inside, we checked out the ice bar (a personal favorite), rode the ice slide (obviously), and wandered through the sculptures. At nine degrees, it’s impressive we lasted about 40 minutes, but there was a lot to see. And ice is cool. Literally and otherwise.
We also spent time downtown, where Grapevine goes all in. Nearly two million people visited during the Christmas season this year, almost double last year, and it showed. Main Street was closed to traffic, shops were fully decorated, and a Christmas decorating competition meant no one was holding back.
We rode the Polar Express train, which was cute…and very much for kids. Two elves led carols and light dancing, Santa made an appearance, and the energy inside the train was, well, interesting. That said, it felt like a missed opportunity not to decorate anything along the route. Even a few lights or displays outside would’ve added so much, but the focus was clearly on the onboard experience. Still, it counted as a Christmas moment, and we enjoyed it, along with taking an alarming number of Santa photos. Mom tried to keep track. I gave up on day one.
We branched out to nearby towns, too. In Mineral Wells, we soaked in microbubble tubs at the Crazy Water Bath House, which was excellent. The town’s Christmas decorations, however, were… underwhelming. Weatherford redeemed things on the way back with an amazing dinner and a beautifully lit courthouse, complete with Christmas carols playing over outdoor speakers.
We also hit the Stockyards, which were fully decked out. We met Cowboy Santa, watched the cattle drive (about 17 longhorns swaying their horn-heavy heads down the street), and soaked up the uniquely Texas version of Christmas. Add in Cirque Frost (loved it), the Nuttiest Cracker comedy show, and Bad Santa’s Boathouse – a Christmas pop-up bar on the lake – and we had officially holiday-ed up.
The day after Christmas, we switched gears completely and went to Meow Wolf, which might be one of the most delightfully strange places I’ve ever been. It’s an immersive, psychedelic, interactive art exhibit, and we happened to be there during a live show. That meant joining a quest to find a missing sock for the Flickerworm migration, which makes no sense until it suddenly does.
We were confused at first, but once someone explained the premise, we embraced it. There’s an app for scavenger hunts, but we mostly explored on our own. And when I say interactive, I mean interactive. We climbed into refrigerators and a dryer, crawled out of a fireplace, dialed hidden phone numbers from phones inside the exhibit, and touched everything. A kid’s dream.
We caught the live show again on its second loop, and by then we were fully invested. It was weird. It was whimsical. And it was wonderful.
One of the unexpected gifts of the trip was getting to see people I don’t usually get to see. A friend from nursing school drove down from Oklahoma with her family to meet us at the Gaylord, and another friend from my Kotzebue days came over from Arlington to join us at Meow Wolf. Coordinating adult schedules is basically an Olympic sport, so even squeezing in even a couple of reunions was a win.
By the time we left, we had experienced everything from lots of Christmas movies to longhorn cattle drives to microbubble baths to missing-sock migrations. It was festive, weird, very Texas, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
