Yesterday, I took a look at Frankemuth’s Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland; today I’m looking at a special location on their property…the Silent Night Chapel:
The Silent Night Chapel is a replica of the original in Oberndorf, Austria, which sits on the location of the former St. Nicolas church, the site of the first performance of “Silent Night” in 1818. It is a tiny building, but that doesn’t stop it from having a lot of lovely details, including some beautiful stained glass windows.
It’s a neat little place, especially for someone like me who has some Austrian blood…for now, it’s as close to visiting my grandfather’s homeland as I’ve gotten!
I have waited over two months, but I’m finally sharing the pictures from our visit to Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland in June!
As the Christmas Queen, this store was a dream come true for me. Imagine it…the world’s largest Christmas store. It’s the size of almost two football fields. Ornaments are arranged by color, or the country they represent, or interest, or…well, whatever! There are over 300 decorated Christmas trees and over 500 nativity scenes. And collectibles! Hummels, Precious Moments, Department 56 items representing all kinds of interests including A Christmas Carol and Harry Potter. Plus German collectibles (of course, in Michigan’s “Little Bavaria”), such as steins and smokers!
Naturally, we picked up a few souvenirs while we were there, including our standard trip magnet, a personalized ornament, and a vintage-style ceramic trees (details to come closer to Christmas!). I have wanted to go to Bronner’s for as long as I’ve known it’s existed, and this was an amazing experience for me…I hope I might to go back someday!
Monday morning of our Michigan trip began with another walk along Frankenmuth’s Main Street while we waited for some of the shops to open. It is such a beautiful place!
We stopped at the Frankenmuth Cheese Haus, where we picked up a few things to try at home. It’s an amazing store!
We also visited beautiful, historic St. Lorenz:
The main event of the day, however, was stopping at Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland, A store I have wanted to shop at for years! And of course I had just the right outfit to wear:
There are many photo opportunities throughout the store, and I took advantage of several of them:
Some people say Disney is the happiest place on earth, but I think Bronner’s is. It’s always Christmas there!
We also visited their Silent Night Chapel, a reproduction of Oberndorf’s monument which stands on the site of the former St. Nicholas Church, where “Silent Night” was first sung.
All too soon, our time in Frankenmuth drew to a close, and we had to say “Auf Wiedersehen.”
Our fun for the day wasn’t over yet, though. We stopped for lunch at Big Boy!
And stopped to see beautiful Lake Michigan from its eastern shore:
And then, for the second time in less than a week, we got to eat at Portillo’s!
It was quite late by the time we reached home, but we got to cheer the St. Louis Blues to victory along the way, which helped the time pass. Look for more details about our visit to Frankenmuth in the coming days!
