The Gaylord Texan has a huge atrium in the center of the hotel.  The atrium is always decorated beautifully, but at Christmas it definitely looked spectacular.

Can you tell these two were a little excited about visiting the Gaylord & going to see ICE!?

Walking through the atrium are gigantic candy canes and bigger than life Christmas figures.  One of Connor and Ellie’s favorite things was the train that chugs through tunnels and bridges.

All the decorations were so pretty and there were so many things to do you could stay all weekend and never leave.

One of the activities they had was gingerbread decorating.  It was set up so cute and of course Gingy was a part of all the gingerbread fun!  The gingerbread house is actually made out of real gingerbread too!

When we got to the tent where the ICE! exhibit was we were all drawn into a theater where we were shown how they make the ice come to life. 

From Gaylord Texan’s website about ICE!:

Gaylord Texan’s popular ICE! winter holiday attraction returns with an all-new, hilarious theme: ICE! featuring DreamWorks’ Merry Madagascar. From November 8, 2012 to January 1, 2013, the DreamWorks animated holiday TV special will be brought to life in an interactive world of colorful ice sculptures and 20-feet tall ice slides carved entirely from TWO MILLION pounds of ice. Relive the story of how Alex the Lion and his friends saved Christmas after Santa and his reindeer crash onto the island of Madagascar. ICE! is hand carved by 40 artisans from Harbin China who will be arriving in early fall. They are very excited to be working with our new Merry Madagascar theme, and so are we!

 Everyone was given big blue coats to put on because it is COOOOOOOOLD in there!!!!

I especially loved that they had a nativity carved out of ice at the very end….it was a beautiful way to end the ICE! exhibit and so pretty.  They also told the story of Jesus’ birth.

When we walked out and started to thaw……we were greeted by Alex the lion!