Christmas Stampede

We had a fairly big day here, and it started out with a visit to the Christmas Stampede show!  We've had tickets for this event some time, and have been looking forward to it a really long time, as in years.  It was one of those things we said we would do some day, and wow, someday turned out to be today.  Of course, we saw this Stampede show back in June, but this version of the show was modified to have a Christmas feel to it, and it was somethin' special!

Visiting with the horses in the stalls before the show.

Maddie poses in a gingerbread house in front of the building.  She's wearing her new Dolly sweatshirt purchased just yesterday from the Emporium.

Three camels doing a rather slow stampede towards the Nativity.

Everything was decorated for Christmas.

Christmas wreaths and lights at night.

And giant ornaments too!

The reindeer are rip-roarin' and ready to go!

Mom and Maddie pose in front of the gingerbread house.

Joey wants a picture in front of the gingerbread house too!

Maddie has a seat in an old barbershop chair.

Mom and Maddie sit a spell.

Nice decorations and tree - and some gifts too!

Joey sits for a while too.

Entertainment while we wait on the show.  We got there early - soon this room would be packed!

Maddie took this nice picture of the decorations.

Time to get in the show after the big thick line of people.  Joey looks hungry!

The MC has a nice Christmas jacket on, and is getting us prepped for a big show.

Lots of choreography and pageantry with the equestrian riders.

Joey looks on and enjoys the show.

It was the North Pole vs. the South Pole today - we were South Polers.

The games were pretty one-sided, until the very last game which was worth five points... and yes, the South won it!

Lots of games, and lots of good food too!

This rider came right up to us - we had good seats!

She's thinking about jumping through that hoop of fire...

Yep, she did it!

The Nutcracker sequence, with the terrifying ballerina and fairy... lots of blacklight!

The fairy flies around, and the jumping jack had a lot of spins on the bungee.

And this nutcracker rode around greeting everyone.

Ah, time to eat!  That is not a porg on the plate!

A real horse carousel!

The changes for Christmas were nice.

The comedic sidekick Skeeter was fun, up here with us in the crowd.

We had "preferred" seating, which I think worked out for this busy season.

I love the snowmen as obstacles - little touches like that throughout the show really sold it.

Santa came by on a horse-drawn sleigh.

The beginning of the Nativity scene, with Joseph and Mary seeing a star.

Here come the Wise Men!

Even the camels bow.  The sheep came by already, and are seated behind.

The Wise Men rode in, dismounting to present their gifts.

This was really a nice scene, a living Nativity.

Ah, and an angel as well, floating high above.

The Nativity Scene was surely a highlight of the whole show.

This place is decorated to the max, as is all of Pigeon Forge.  

After the show, we made a trip over to Dollywood for one final visit of 2023.  We stopped at our hotel in Gatlinburg first though, and traffic was horrendous.  On a whim, we decided on the return to go up the road our hotel was on, and I mean further up.  Like, waaaaay further up.  We left the hotel, made a right turn and drove right up the side of a mountain there on Greystone Heights Road, and what an adventurous little road that is!  Hairpin turns and no guardrails and deep plunges - you're sitting there overlooking Gatlinburg on this perilous path... wow.  Maddie was not a fan!  The road goes right up to that bridge and the chair lift high point, and then joins up with our destination, the Gatliburg bypass.  It was fun, but Maddie would probably not rather do that one again.  The one thing that surprised us though was seeing a bear!  Yes, an adolescent bear ran right in front of the car, made it to safety at a tree on the other side of the road, and just camped out there watching us as we slowly passed by.  That was a really nice surprise!

At Dollywood, Maddie had a small list of things to do, starting with the cruising cars, then bumper cars, then the carousel, and then ice cream.  Right away on the tram, we knew the temperature was much colder, but the park was still packed when we got to the gates.  Still, we accomplished our mission tonight!

Here's Maddie in the line in the garage.

Joey's ready for the Rockin' Roadway.  Maddie and I both stand in line, and she gets to pick which car she wants to get in.  She's a big fan of 50's cars, and wishes they were still made to look like this.

In fact, she wanted to pose with this old police cruiser outside the ride.

Maddie picks her car, and goes for a cruise!

Here she is, outside.  The radio is playing old Christmas songs, of course - "Frank Sinatra's Santa Claus is Coming to Town."  You can see all the Christmas lights all around as we cruise the track.

Here's another shot of Maddie with the old police cruiser.

Mom loves these old decorations, and so do I!

The bells and retro decorations in this part of the park are wonderful.

Ah, another old display.  Looks festive and fantastic!

This is actually at the junction there, a nice display with a tree.

And here's the train loading up for a Christmas run.  Huge crowds were waiting to board!

They had more runs on this train - it's super popular, and I can understand why!

Next we got on board the carousel, and it was crowded too, but really nice.

Even Joey got to ride.  We had to wait for this one too, that's how big a crowd there was.

An oh my goodness!  An ostrich!  That's right, this cowboy got to ride an ostrich!  That was just a funny little nod to one of our messages at KidPak, a nice little present for me!

Maddie rode nearby, and we got to get on practically first so she had her choice of noble steeds.

And next we got to join the Demolition Derby!  We waited in line for a good bit the first time, but used up our last free pass to ride a second time (avoiding that line).  This time around, the demolitions were a little more rough, as there were plenty of kids (and grown-ups) not familiar with how these cars work - and a lot of oncoming near head-on collisions!

We got some pizza afterwards, returning to the Iron Horse.  We got that seat just as someone was getting up - there were very few seats available inside where it was warm, so we were blessed and highly favored!

Back towards the front, walking around and seeing the lights.  We've seen this area above go from umbrellas to kites to leaves, and now bells.  The music changes too, themed to everything - lots of Christmas songs with bells!

Joey at the Palace Theater

Maddie got us one of those revered seats inside the ice cream shop.  There are only a few, and somehow we always manage to snag one.  In fact, it was another wild accomplishment to snag the seat for pizza too.  We had lots and lots of favor this trip.  Maddie had chocolate chip mint, and I had an egg nog milkshake!  Mom usually gets the butter pecan.

We made our way over to the other side of the park after this.

Yes, Joey came along too!

So here we saw the Joyful Christmas Drone Show, which was pretty awesome!

Yes, these are all drones flying overhead making massive 3-D shapes in the air.

Including a Nativity Scene, which was really nice.

Ah, the globe.  Florida has apparently expanded, and Panama looks a bit swollen.

A dove with flapping wings, holding a ribbon.

And fireworks at the end, along with a message  "Merry Christmas" from Dolly.

Here's that tree at Wildwood.  We got there about 45 minutes early, picking out a prime spot.

We were there at a bridge, so there was no one in front of us (unless they wanted to stand in the creek!).

These bells actually rang in the sky, or at least moved as if ringing.

It's an amazing thing to see, almost like the laser shows of the 80's.

And there were added pyrotechnics too!

It was a short show, but we loved it.

There's that dove again, flying across the sky.

And another shot of the fireworks, with the drones saying "Merry Christmas"

Here's the finally image - "Merry Christmas  Love, Dolly"

Above is a brief low-res excerpt from the drone show.  It's worth seeing!  It made for a nice conclusion to our trip here in Dollywood.

Streams in front of the Big Bear Mountain Coaster.

And there's Joey, all snuggled up inside a bag for the ride home.  The temperature was plunging, but Mom dressed us all very well with layers, and we had a great time tonight.  We got back to the hotel for one final night, and we were pretty wiped out from a very full day.  We watched an episode of "What If...?" and that's about all there was time for before we started getting really tired.  It was time for prayers, and a good night's rest!