Monday 15th December saw 8 families from across the UK travel to the North Pole with The Joshua Foundation on our annual Lapland trip.

The charity took 3 families from the Heath Hospital in Cardiff, 2 families from Birmingham and Bristol Children’s Hospital’s and one family from the Musgrove Hospital in Taunton for a trip of a lifetime to meet the ‘Real Santa Clause! The families were also accompanied by some very special people from the Miss Wales/Mister Wales and Miss Universe Uk competition, who had all raised fantastic amounts of money for the charity.

All of the families stayed at the Express by Holiday Inn at Cardiff Airport on the Sunday night as it was a very early start on the Monday morning.

The three hour flight to Lapland was filled with Christmas spirit as all the children sang Christmas carols and did festive coloring! On arrival in Lapland it was a mild -4, but everyone was still kitted out in thermal suits and snow boots, so they could enjoy playing in the freshly fallen snow!

All the children could not wait to visit Santa in his magical house in the forest. None of them could believe that Santa already knew what they wanted for Christmas and if they had been naughty or nice!

Once all the families had made their special visits to Santa, they all took part in the fantastic activities which included Snow mobiling, reindeer rides and husky dog rides.

In between all the excitement the families also made a pit stop to fill up on some hearty warm food, including hot chocolate and festive cookies. They were then off again to continue with their activities.

It was then time to say goodbye to Santa and head home. The flight home was a very quite one as most people fell asleep after eating their Christmas meal.

On arrival back at the Airport, all the families were then given their Christmas bags which contained some goodies for all the family!

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Family Comments

Green Family

We can only begin to tell you how grateful we are for the trip to Lapland, it is a truly magical place and the trip was extremely well organized.

What an unforgettable day - from descending through the clouds to see hundreds of miles of snow covered fir trees , to hearing the husky dogs howling in the wind as we entered camp, and best of all Santa’s helper calling ‘Come on, Santa’s waiting!’ as we ran to his snow covered lodge.

Huge thanks and endless gratitude to you and everyone there for a once in a lifetime chance at such a special trip. Maddi was truly delighted

Blakemore Family

Thank you for the most amazing trip of a lifetime and making our dreams come true.

Griffiths Family

We had a fantastic time, it was such a surprise and something we would not ordinarily be able to do.

It has been hard for all the family since finding out that Dan had Leukemia and this was such a special treat for him and the rest of us.,/p>

We will never forget the trip to Lapland it was a once in a lifetime experience for the boys.

Davis Family

We would like to write and thank you all at the Joshua foundation for a wonderful Lapland trip.

It was truly amazing, we will never forget it. It was so magical and Beautiful. It gave us all warm feelings in our tummies!

We again thank you all from the bottom of our hearts, we will never forget it. It was truly a very special day and we are very very lucky to have been given the chance to have gone to Lapland