Trip to Yankee Candle Flagship Store

We recently took a ski trip to Vermont with some friends, and on our drive up we passed by the Yankee Candle flagship store in South Deerfield, MA. This place was enormous, and divided into several sections. They had a whole area dedicated to Christmas Villages:


and coo-coo clocks:

and a Bavarian village, complete with a castle, a king and queen, and armed guards:






We went with our friends Jacki and Mike, who had fun on the pirate ship:



while I was in heaven in the candy section and the "I Love Lucy" memorabilia area I stumbled upon (in a different part):



We also passed through Santa Land. Surprisingly the sled was all metal and sturdy enough to hold all four of us!


They even have an area dedicated to the history of Yankee Candle, where you can see them make candlesticks the old fashioned way:



and a fragrance area, which was right next to where you can create your own candle. Jacki was first in line!



The store went on much further - including giant candles (made of more than 1,377 pounds of wax), fudge stores, candy apples, fresh popcorn, a winery, multiple restaurants, areas where it snowed every four minutes, Santa's workshop and toy factory - and several other areas. I'd highly recommend the trip if you're anywhere in that area. It was definitely a cool place to visit and a spot you could easily spend the half the day in.

We also took another trip to the Ben and Jerry Factory in Stowe. We passed right by it on the way towards the ski resort, and thought Jacki and Mike would definitely want to check it out. Plus, how can you turn down ice cream? :)