The Christmas trip your child will never forget

Want to win Christmas? Check out the cheat sheet below.
- Cris

Every December, parents everywhere are secretly competing for an invisible award: Coolest Parent of the Year. Usually, it’s an unspoken race - who built the biggest gingerbread house, who scored the last Lego set, who somehow managed to get their kids’ photo with Santa without tears.

But there’s one move that instantly guarantees your trophy: take them to Reindeer Training Camp at Running Reindeer Ranch in North Pole, Alaska.

Yes, it’s a real place.
Yes, there are real reindeer.
And yes - your child will absolutely tell everyone at school that they trained Santa’s herd.

Where Magic Feels Real (Because It Kind of Is)

The first thing you notice in North Pole, Alaska, is that the locals don’t treat Christmas like a season - it’s a lifestyle. Candy-cane streetlamps line the roads, streets have names like Mistletoe Lane and Kris Kringle Drive, and even the gas station sells ornaments year-round. Santa’s giant statue greets you on arrival, standing nearly 50 feet tall.

Then you head a few miles out of town, where a quiet birch forest opens into a ranch that feels like the set of a Christmas movie - only there are no actors here, just you, a guide named Jane (yes, the real owner), and her herd of reindeer trotting out of the trees as if answering a secret signal.

The ranch limits group sizes to keep the experience intimate, so it feels less like a tour and more like being invited into someone’s winter fairy tale. You’re given a short safety talk (“They’re friendly but huge”) before you set off into the forest with your new antlered hiking companions.

Going Somewhere? Protect Your Trip (and Your Sanity)

Meet the Reindeer

Each reindeer has a personality. Ruby likes to lead. Buttercup is shy. Jasper, the teenage troublemaker, sometimes pretends not to hear his name until you offer him a snack.

Children love that the reindeer aren’t locked behind fences - they walk right beside you, hooves crunching through the snow, occasionally brushing against your arm. It’s a moment when every Christmas story suddenly feels possible.

They’re surprisingly graceful, even while wearing winter coats of thick fur that glisten with frost. Their antlers are enormous - up to four feet wide - and covered in soft “velvet,” which kids can touch under supervision. Guides explain how reindeer shed and regrow their antlers each year and how both males and females grow them (a fun fact kids will happily correct adults with later).

When someone inevitably asks if these reindeer really help Santa, Jane smiles and says, “They’re all on standby. He knows who’s trained.”

The Science of Magic

What makes Running Reindeer Ranch special is that it blends fantasy with genuine education. Kids learn how reindeer survive Arctic winters: their noses warm cold air before it hits their lungs, their hooves change shape seasonally to grip snow or tundra, and their fur traps air so efficiently that they can float when crossing frozen rivers.

Guides talk about migration, climate change, and the difference between reindeer and caribou (spoiler: they’re the same species - reindeer are just the domesticated ones). But the facts never overshadow the wonder. Everything feels hands-on, curious, and alive.

By the end of the walk, most kids are asking how to adopt a reindeer, and most parents are asking how to ship a pair of antlers home.

North Pole, Alaska: A Real Town with a Sense of Humor

Back in town, the holiday spirit keeps going. You can visit Santa Claus House, a gift shop that doubles as the town’s unofficial North Pole headquarters. Inside, elves (okay, employees in red aprons) hand out candy canes while you browse ornaments, fudge, and letters addressed to Santa from children around the world.

Each December, volunteers sort and respond to nearly half a million of these letters. Parents can even arrange for their own kids to receive one stamped with the official North Pole, Alaska postmark - authentic and, frankly, irrefutable evidence that Santa is real.

If you stay overnight, the Aurora Borealis Lodge offers heated glass igloos where you can watch the northern lights flicker above the snow. Kids stay up late, wrapped in blankets, whispering about how Santa probably uses the aurora as a runway.

When your child goes back to school after the holidays and tells their classmates, “I trained Santa’s reindeer,” every jaw will be on the floor.

You’ll smile, sip your coffee, and quietly accept your invisible trophy - because you just became the Coolest Parent of the Year. For at least 10 minutes.

See you next Wednesday.

What did you think of Espresso Boarding?

Was this forwarded to you? Sign up to receive your own copy.
It’s free to subscribe.

Looking for previous destinations? They are safely located here.