Confessions of a Christmas Skeptic: Bronner’s Won Me Over

Don’t hate me for this: I’m not a Christmas person. My birthday is in early December, and it’s been tradition in our household to put up Christmas decorations on my birthday (mom was in that nesting period with that final burst of energy before going into labor) and take them down on my son’s birthday in early January (see last set of parentheses). That 30-day time frame has been ingrained in me for over 50 years, so I don’t really get excited about Christmas-y stuff until December. Until I went to Bronner’s. 

Sitting on 27 acres in Frankenmuth, Michigan, Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland is a year-round Christmas shop. Think Santa’s workshop met a Mega-Meijer on steroids. Just the decorations outside of the compound made my Scrooge-like heart grow three sizes. The landscaped lawns also include the Silent Night Memorial Chapel—a replica of the original chapel in Oberndorf, Austria. Touted as the World’s Largest Christmas Store, the store itself has 320,000 square feet of every type of Christmas ornament you can fathom and in colors I didn’t even know existed.  

Not just ornaments—lights, trees, wreaths, ribbons...need a life-size Wise Man to finish out your nativity scene? Bronner’s has it. Need a teeny-tiny nutcracker to sit on your mantel? Bronner’s has it. Want a tree in every room and a candle for every window? There are more than 50,000 Christmas items and over 350 decorated trees on display. Bronner's also offers personalized ornaments crafted by in-house artists, some of them made in the time it would take you to peruse the “sea life” section of ornaments.  

And while the fully lit, 12-foot flocked Blue Spruce Christmas tree I fell in love with won’t fit in my car for the ride back to Virginia, it’s comforting to know I can order it online. Once I’ve measured my ceilings, anyway.