Unlike others, ours is an open grotto. There is no darkened room to enter to add to the child's torment, everything is visible from outside - ticking all the Child Protection boxes.
Ours is themed on an enchanted forest. I didn't actually noticed this until a couple of weeks in, but it is. You can tell this by the large enchanted tree at the entrance. It has scary blinking eyes and a singing raccoon that pops out of the top from time to time and sings the same four Christmas songs on loop. I hate that raccoon.
Walking past the entrance you pass two mechanical elves who move back and forth hammering the same toy. The fact that they are of traditional elf height kind of shows us human sized elves up. You pass several more lit up trees and then you're at the front till.
The path that leads you to Santa is bordered with low quality fake snow that is proving a liability with buggies and running children. There are several moving animals that are often the saviours of frightened toddlers. They like to stay near the oversized hedgehog at the start, gradually move to the moving bunnies near the camera and finish off with the sleeping fox beside the exit. What hedgehogs, rabbits and foxes have to do with Christmas, I'm not sure, but they're there none the less. There is also another creepy mechanical elf beside the camera. He is obscured by trees just enough to make me forget he's there and be terrified once again when I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye. Due to bad positioning he has nearly lost a finger by repeatedly moving into the gate. A hole has also been poked into Mr Hedgehog by a moving tree branch.
Behind Santa's chair there is two shelves of toys that have been wisely screwed down. It wasn't until one day when I thought I was becoming ill that I realised the toys are also moving. Just gently side to side.
There is also of course a lot of twinkly lights and loosely covered up wires that will no doubt someday soon lead to a tragic fire related accident.
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