By Tim Cable
Anchor / WJHL
Published: November 6, 2006

 
If Dollywood’s your destination this holiday season, you can take a trip to Toyland.

“Christmas time is about family and making memories and that’s why we created this show”, says Dolly Parton. “This is Dolly’s re-telling of the classic Christmas story, “Babes in Toyland”, and of course we hope that you’re gonna like it and I’m pretty sure that you’re going to cause it’s really spectacular. It’s the biggest production that we’ve ever done here at Dollywood and we’re just so excited about it”.

The elaborate stage show unfolds in a small East Tennessee village on Christmas Eve and follows kids, Alan and Jane on an incredible adventure through Toyland. In a real show stopping scene, the towering 14-foot-tall General leads the 16 fully animated soldiers helping family foil evil and reuniting the kids with their loved ones for Christmas. The family flies home from Toyland in a contraption that sails out over the audience.

“I couldn’t believe it when you sailed out through the crowd”, Dolly giggles and yells to the performers.

It’s a Christmas show that could put Dollywood over the top in winning a prestigious international award.

“We are nominated, well we are one of the three finalists in what they call the Applause Award”, Dolly says. “And that’s for the theme parks all over the world so we’re in the running there. Course we’re gonna find out in a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks I think they said if we win or not and wouldn’t that be a good Christmas present”?

Dollywood’s “Babes in Toyland” should prove to be quite a Christmas present this holiday season.

“Christmas here in the Smoky Mountains is a special time at Dollywood”, says Dolly. “And course, it’s about families and it’s about coming home for the holidays. Anyway, we’re just happy to be a part of this whole thing and course we got a whole lot of good stuff coming up. This is such a special place and so dear to my heart of course. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all that stuff to you, and God Bless You”.