Despite Covid, Father Christmas will still be coming to town...
FATHER Christmas’s reindeer have been furloughed this year but don’t worry his back up horses are to hand.
Gloucestershire based Catherine’s Carriages, have got a plan to keep the festive spirit alive for households across the county.
Owner Kate Lewis and husband Dean Lambert, who live in Epney, have planned a number of routes across Cheltenham and Gloucester, which will see Santa and his white horses give presents to children in the county.
The county firm usually arranges horse-drawn weddings and funerals, and even unicorn rides.
But this year, what with one thing and another, there hasn’t been much opportunity for the magnificent beasts to don their fancy plumes.
They will be doing the routes over 10 days and 13 places, taking in: Cheltenham, Hester’s Way and Up Hatherley (December 12), Prestbury towards Swindon Village (December 13), Coopers Edge and Matson (December 16), Linden and Podsmead (December 17), Coney Hill and Abbeymead (December 18), Kingsway (December 21) and Quedgeley and
Hardwicke (December 22).
For those who do not live on the routes but would still like to be involved, Kate is offering a limited number of drive through experiences at Severn Vale School in Gloucester and Swindon Village Hall in Cheltenham.
Tickets for the door to door experience and a personalised present start at £25 for the first child and £20 for each child thereafter.
To book tickets and find out more information - contact Catherine’s Carraiges through their Facebook page.
Sharing the idea behind the Santa horse walk, Kate said: “We’re a horse drawn carriage company fundamentally, we do weddings and funerals.
“But most of our brides apart from four this year had to postpone or cancel.
“Last year we did a Christmas thing where all the children lined up at Tesco but we can’t do that this year because of social distancing.
So we contacted environmental health about doing the route and as it is social distancing they said it would be fine.”