Frankenmuth, MI

This town has been listed as a must visit small town in several venues and I've seen it listed as a must-see Christmas town! There's a very heavy German influence in the town that makes it feel very European. As we drove up from the south where we were camping, we first ran into Bronner's Christmas Store. Billed as the world's largest Christmas store, your eyes begin to feast just getting to parking! The outside of the store and all around the grounds are decorated for Christmas year round and I can only imagine what it looks like at night!

After you enter the store, your head swims with the sheer magnitude and variety of Christmas related items for sale. The ornament section alone is so large that it is divided into themed sections like "pets", "food", "German", "Austrian", etc,. They were divided by type or country of origin. Then comes the trees of all varieties including trees in crazy color variations! The lights section is amazing as well with all sorts of new light strands and lighted decorations including some "infinity" decorations that were very cool! They had Christmas related stuff from all over the world.

After shopping, we continued our tour of the town by heading to the downtown section which is a wonderful little area that straddles a river running through town. There are a ton of shops, restaurants and the like for your shopping pleasure! It was very picturesque and reminded us of towns like Gatlinburg. The sheer amount of flowers planted along the streets really gave the town a warm feel. They even had a paddle wheel boat plying the river through town and a covered wooden bridge!

If you haven't visited it yet, and you can swing by eastern Michigan, we highly recommend a trip to Frankenmuth no matter what time of year!