Christmas Memories 2017: Train Gardens

Posing with Pop-Pop at the Kenilworth Train Garden

We visited two train gardens during the holidays, first at Kenilworth Mall in Towson on Dec. 29 and then at the Ellicott City Fire Station on New Year's Day. It was fun to see the kids excited about pushing buttons to see what happens in the garden rather than having them push our buttons to see what happens. (I kid, I kid ... not really, they push our buttons a lot.)

It was our first visit to Kenilworth, which didn't disappoint. The kids circled the train garden multiple times, with Pop-Pop keeping an eye on Aubrey while I followed Graham. They probably would've stayed much longer had the enticement of lunch at Red Robin not been offered.

We've visited the Ellicott City train garden in the past. This was the first time, however, that we accepted their challenge to try and locate items throughout the display. It was no easy task. Erica had already taken Aubrey to the car by the time Graham and I completed the list ... with some help.

For the young and the young at heart

One item escaped us despite our determined efforts to track down everything on the list. "Too Close to Call" was the clue, which left me looking for tiny figurines that were racing each other. Sleds, perhaps. No such luck.

As it turns out, "Too Close to Call" was the tiny headline inscribed on a newspaper held up by a newsboy figurine. The firefighter who guided us to its location assured us that it was the item everyone struggled with.

Graham was deservedly proud to have located the "three hens laying eggs," who were inside the window of one of the train garden buildings. As Graham describes it, he thought they were turkeys but then took a step back and saw that the word "egg nog" was written on the outside of the building. That tipped him off to the fact that these were in fact the much sought after hens, and they were laying eggs. It was an impressive find at any age, much less at age five.

Graham surveys the sports scene in the train garden

As you can see in the picture of Pop-Pop and Aubrey, the train gardens were enjoyable not only for the actual kids, but for us big kids as well as they offered a reminder of the magic of Christmas time.