This year sees more garden centres opening their Grottos for Santa Paws events, particularly on weekdays early in the season and GTN Xtra's Trevor and Karen Pfeiffer took their Doodles to see Santa at Frosts Woburn Sands to test the experience.

And we can report it was all we expected and more.  At Frosts we got a full on "doggy" version of their grotto experience and the welcoming, friendly and patient elves made it all the more enjoyable.  Meeting the yeti, and gift of a Petface pudding, finding biscuits and making a bag full to take away, then a photo with Santa himself and a reindeer toy as a present for each doodle.  A great time was had by all!

From a retailing point of view it was great to see pet products merchandised at the photo checkout.  "We don't normally have product here when children come through the grotto but pet owners love the opportunity to pick up and extra gift item for their pet," explained the head Elf.

As this issue of GTN Xtra goes to press we know that Santa Paws grotto events are taking at:

Frosts Millets Farm
Frosts Woburn Sands
Garden King, Swadlincote
Gordon Rigg, Rochdale
Groves, Bridport
Kershaw’s, Brighouse
Notcutts Wheatcroft
Planters Tamworth
Squire’s Badshot Lea
Squire’s Long Ditton
Squire’s Stanmore
Squire’s Washington
Squire’s West Horsley

If you have a Santa Paws event planned please let us know: trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk

See our gallery of pictures from Frosts Santa Paws and their Christmas displays.