The Trafford Centre has transformed into Tinsel Town for Christmas, bringing the ‘longest toboggan slide in the UK’ to Manchester as part of the festivities.
At 37 metres long, the ‘sky raising’ slide is just one of the attractions popping up outside The Orient for this year’s winter fair.
Alongside the epic toboggan slide, there are also twenty different festive fairground rides, an ice rink, ice skating show, mobile bungee, a grotto, Christmas street food and a big wheel to discover – making it a must for families this season.
Image: The Trafford Centre
Food-wise, think Bavarian bratwurst, burgers, pizza and more – with traditional german sausage huts stationed alongside local traders Old School Dogs, Oh My Glaze, The Thai Food Van, Epic Pizza, Kingdown of Sweets and Bouji Baker.
Running until 3 January, the winter wonderland will have Father Christmas in his grotto waiting to meet children who’ve been nice (and naughty) this year and hear their present requests ready for the big day.
ADVERTISEMENT
Each child will receive a special gift from the main man himself, as well as getting a photo with him and his elves.
There’ll also be fun rides like Santa’s Train, the Tinsel Town coaster, Rock Rage, Sky Flyer and the Reverse Bungee to check out, plus a spectacular ice-skating Snowstorm show in the Big Top tent featuring some world-class skaters and circus artists.
ADVERTISEMENT
Image: The Trafford Centre
How much is it?
Price-wise, it’s free to enter if you’re enjoying food, on route to see Father Christmas in his grotto or watching the Snowstorm ice skating show.
Grotto visits are priced at £5 per adult and £8 per child (not including booking fees), whilst general admission to TInsel Town is £3.50 (or £3 if booked online)>
Rides at the fairground are accessed via a token system. Tokens are £1, and it will cost you between one and three tokens per ride. Tokens can also be purchased in advance, with a block of 25 sold for £20
ADVERTISEMENT
Ice skating is £12 for adults at peak time, and £8 for children – with a saving available if you visit at off-peak times.
To find out more and book, visit the Tinsel Town website here.
Feature image – The Trafford Centre
Christmas
Massive festive event dubbed the ‘Glastonbury of Christmas’ is returning to the North West
Daisy Jackson
The North West’s most extravagant festive event, with everything from a frozen skating pond to a snow-covered world filled with elves, will return just outside Greater Manchester this winter.
Dubbed the ‘Glastonbury of Christmas’, LaplandUK recreates the home of Father Christmas himself right outside Greater Manchester.
The event was so popular last year, organisers are expecting more than one million people will join the queue for tickets when they go live this week – with tickets expected to sell out in hours.
Families who book tickets for LaplandUK – which range in price from £60 to £195 – will be greeted by hundreds of elves and other performers in a snow-covered landscape.
You’ll be able to visit the Lapland Toy Factory to make a toy for Santa’s sleigh; decorate gingerbead with Mother Christmas in the Lapland Bakery, as well as skating on a frozen pond and travelling through the Whispering Woods.
Every child leaves LaplandUK with a gift from Father Christmas.
The immersive experience takes around four and a half hours from start to finish, but the magic begins way before – ticket-holders are sent personalised invitation boxes (which you can pop in the freezer for extra magic for the kids).
LaplandUK has invested an additional £30m into its Cheshire site, which is the second location after a long-standing residency in Ascot.
Keeping this impressive festive event running are more than 2000 members of staff across the two sites.
It’s drawn in some very high-profile guests, too, with previous visitors including the Prince and Princess of Wales, Sir Elton John, and the Beckhams.
The Lapland experience is based on eight best-selling books, written by founders Mike and Alison Battle.
LaplandUK will run from 7 November to 24 December 2026, with tickets ranging from £60 to £195.
Tickets for LaplandUK Manchester go on sale from 10am on Friday 27 March HERE, with the waiting room open from 9am.
How and where to recycle or donate your Christmas tree in Manchester | 2026
Emily Sergeant
The new year is here, and the ’12 days of Christmas’ are up… which means it’s time for a fresh start.
Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve both feel like things of the past now, and for most of us, this is our first proper week back at work too, which means (if you haven’t already) it’s time to tackle the task of taking down and putting away all the festive decorations – even if it is one of the dullest times of the year and it signals that the magic of Christmas is over.
For those of us that opt for a real Christmas tree though, the end of the year always brings one question – now what do we do with it?
Manchester City Council has aimed to answer that very question by providing residents with a handful of different ways to recycle their Christmas trees to make sure they’re put to good use and don’t go to waste or get dumped.
Here’s the different options.
___
Recycle it in your food and garden waste bin
You can recycle your Christmas tree by cutting it up and placing it in your food and garden waste bin, but you’ll need to make sure you take the following steps before doing so.
Remove all decorations and fairy lights
Take off the base or wooden block if your tree has one
Make sure the trunk is not thicker than your wrist. Wood thicker than your wrist is too big and can’t be put in the garden and food bin. Large trunks and wooden bases can be taken to a recycling centre.
Donate it to charity
Did you know you can donate your Christmas trees to charity? That’s right – for residents living in Manchester, all you’ll need to do is register your tree with national charity JustHelping, along with a donation towards the collection, and you can help a local hospice or charitable cause in the city-region.
The money raised will go to good causes in the area, including Moya Cole Hospice (previously St Anne’s Hospice), Francis House, and We Love Manchester.
You can find more information and register your tree here.
It’s time to take down and recycle our Christmas trees for another year / Credit: Myriam Olmz | Tanbir Mahmud (via Unsplash)
Take it to a local drop-off point
You can drop your real tree throughout January at:
Angel Meadow Park (entrance Old Mount Street) – M4 4HA
Wythenshawe Park and Gardens Athletics Track – M23 0PH
Heaton Park (Middleton Road entrance) – M8 4NB
Boggart Hole Clough (near the Visitor Centre) – M9 7DH
Patchett Street, off Hyde Road in Ardwick – M12 4RY
Bring it to your local recycling centres
And finally, wherever you live in Manchester, you can take your real Christmas tree – and even your artificial tree that is beyond reuse – to your local recycling centre for free of charge, but it’s worth noting that if you’re planning on using a van, pick-up truck, or a twin-axle trailer to dispose of your tree, then you’ll probably need to apply for a permit.
You can find information about your nearest recycling centre here.
Are you elsewhere in Greater Manchester? Recycle for Greater Manchester (R4GM) has teamed up with local councils and charities across the region to provide Greater Manchester residents in all 10 boroughs with several different options for either recycling or donate their old Christmas trees.
Georgina Pellant -
25th November 2021 
