Nashville at Christmas

Oliver and I went to the ICE! and SNOW! exhibits at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel today.  The ICE! exhibit was for sure a little more than he could appreciate right now, but it is amazing for older kids and adults.  There's an entire storyline, this year the animated short film Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, done in scenes carved from ice.  These are huge scenes that cover an area the size of several football fields when put together.  The top picture, for example, filled the space the fits the front two rooms on my house.  Santa was my height.  The Radio Flyer bicycle you see if an actual kid's bicycle.  And this wasn't even the biggest scene.  It's really impressive to see.

There's music playing throughout the exhibit that goes along with the story, and there's an adult and kids' ice slide in the middle that's optional.  They give out big, blue parkas to everyone to wear while they go through, which especially helps if you go on the ice slide.  It was kind of hard to hear anything, or in my case try to talk to Ollie or hear what he was saying, because of the music and probably three layers of hats we had on.

The final scene at the very end of the exhibit, after the "The End" sign, was a room with a huge nativity done in clear ice.  Oliver liked this part a little more because he recognized the various animals in the scene.  I pointed out to him Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus, too.  It was very extensive and pretty.

I don't know that I will go to this every year.  It's really expensive (fortunately, kids under 4 are free, hence my willingness to take Ollie this year), and if it's not a theme that's really interesting to you, it's just big blocks of ice.  But it's one of those "Nashville at Christmas" things to do that I'd passed on last year, so I really wanted to go this year and feel like I was seeing some of the local holiday fare.