By Dylan McDonough
On Friday, April 19th, my family decided to go to Frankenmuth, Michigan. Frankenmuth was founded in 1845 by a group of fifteen German-Lutheran missionaries who came to the area to teach Christianity to the Chippewa Indians. The word “Franken” means the province from which the settlers came and “muth” means courage in German.
Our first stop was the world’s largest Christmas store – BRONNER’S CHRISTmas Wonderland (open 361 days of the year). It takes up 2.2 acres (1.7 football fields). Inside it was huge! There were 400,000 ornaments and 500 styles of Nativity scenes. There was a complete section of ornaments on bacon, football teams, s’mores, lizard and reptiles, vegetables and fruit, dragonflies and lighthouses! They even had an ornament for a newspaper reporter like me! They sell two million ornaments each year, over 400,000 feet of garland, and more than 125,000 light sets! The week after Thanksgiving Bronner’s gets 50,000 customers. We even saw Santa suits for sale. Bronner’s has more than 60 billboards, the farthest distance is on I-75 in Ocala, FL! There is much more here and I urge you to go.
The next thing we did was explore the town. We went into the Bavarian Inn for lunch. Their world famous chicken was excellent! Our family got to see fudge being made and taffy being pulled. We went into the Country Store to see canvas paintings, puzzles, retro advertising signs, and best of all, candy!
One of my favorite events was making pretzels. Our instructor was excellent. Everyone got a hair net and pretzel glasses. We were shown how long the dough should be stretched out, and how to fold and crisscross it. He also told us the story of the pretzel. In medieval times there was a baker who was trying to make a new recipe. He noticed the children outside his bakery were saying prayers with folded arms. He took his snake-like dough and crisscrossed it to look like hands across a chest. Pretzels have three holes to represent the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He named them “pretiolas,” meaning “little rewards.” The children shared them with their parents. The parents and children came back for more pretiolas. Over time, their name was shortened to pretzels.
When all the dough was ready, our instructor took them to bake and salt. After about an hour, we came back to enjoy our superb pretzels.
This family adventure was delicious and grand. I enjoyed tasting and watching different treats being made. BRONNER’s CHRISTmas Wonderland was amazing. The pretzels were great and the country store was exciting. I think every family should go to Frankenmuth!
