The Christmas magic we spend a fortune trying to create might be the wrong kind

Disclaimer: This was a gifted experience for our family.

There is the sort of pressure that arrives with parenthood in December. We are no longer allowed just to have Christmas. We must create memories, preferably photogenic ones for social media impressions. There are Christmas markets, Santa experiences, illuminated trails, pantomimes, matching pyjamas and assorted elves committing minor acts of vandalism around the house. None of these things is inherently bad and some are wonderful. But taken together, they can make December feel less like a celebration and more like a parental performance review.

Have I provided sufficient magic? Has Cyrus experienced enough wonder? And, more importantly, how much is all this wonder going to cost? This really bothers me because I had Cyrus at 40. I am now firmly in the stage of motherhood where I haven’t the energy for competitive Christmas parenting. I would rather just have one evening we genuinely remember than six outings undertaken because everybody else appears to be doing them on Facebook.

Which brings me to Enchanted City Newcastle. We wrapped ourselves in scarves and hats, then headed into Newcastle on a properly cold December evening. I expected lights, art and for Cyrus to enjoy himself. I didn’t expect to leave questioning whether the best family experiences are sometimes the ones that ask the least of us.

We spend a great deal of money trying to create memories for children. Yet the moments they remember have an inconvenient habit of being the ones nobody planned.

Enchanted City is an outdoor, after-dark art experience spread across Northumbria University’s City Centre Campus, combining light installations, projections, performance, fire and space-inspired artwork. The entrance is at the corner of Northumberland Road and College Street, near the City Hall stage door, and the whole experience takes place outdoors. When they tell you to wear layers, believe them.

There isn’t a rigid procession from attraction A to attraction B. You wander, and that small distinction changes the mood completely. There is less of the frantic parental choreography of, “Quick, we need to get to the next thing,” and more following children towards whatever happens to be glowing in the distance.

Cyrus did exactly that. The cold was biting, the sort that eventually penetrates even the coat you confidently declared “really warm” before leaving home, but there was something surprisingly gentle about following a child through pools of light in the dark. For once, nobody needed to achieve anything, get anywhere by a set time or prove that they were having fun.

One of the pieces that stayed with me most was Ascendance, a life-size projection of an astronaut floating alone in space inside a church. It is quiet and slow, with no great explosion of colour demanding that you photograph it immediately. Cyrus looked at the astronaut and asked me whether he was lonely. “Yes,” I said. Then we both went quiet.

That tiny exchange probably lasted seconds, but it has remained with me far longer than many considerably more elaborate family outings. That is the thing about good art, children and adults can stand in front of exactly the same object and see completely different things. Cyrus saw an astronaut. I saw isolation, vulnerability and the slightly uncomfortable enormity of being human.

Then there was Ladder to the Moon, a glowing ladder stretching upwards into the darkness. Naturally, Cyrus wanted to climb it. I looked at it and started thinking about ambition, ageing and all the things I once assumed I would do before adulthood introduced mortgages, school runs and sensible lists. This may not have been the artist’s intention. Welcome to midlife.

That was one of the things I liked most about the evening. The installations did not dictate how we were supposed to feel about them. They gave us somewhere to put our own thoughts. Cyrus could see an impossible ladder disappearing towards the moon while I could stand beside him contemplating getting older. Somehow, both responses fitted.

Cluster was Cyrus’s favourite. Thousands of moving points of light surround you, creating the sensation of walking through a living star field, and he immediately disappeared among them before coming back for another go. I took it more slowly, watching the lights shift around us and enjoying that rare sensation of feeling very small without finding it remotely threatening.

For a few minutes, scale changes. There is something useful about remembering that your unanswered emails, Christmas shopping and whatever thing you were worrying about at 3 a.m. are not, in fact, the centre of the universe. Perspective is an underrated Christmas present, and thankfully doesn’t need batteries.

The fire garden was another highlight. Small controlled flames flickered against the darkness while people gathered around them, and nobody appeared to be rushing. Children watched while adults quietly edged closer for warmth, pretending this was entirely about appreciating the installation. Cyrus stood looking at the flames for longer than I expected, and it made me realise how rarely we give children permission simply to observe something.

We give them an extraordinary amount of stimulation. Screens flash, toys make noises, activities have objectives, and even family experiences increasingly arrive with an implied instruction to photograph them, share them and provide evidence that everybody had a fantastic time. Here was Cyrus just watching fire.

Then one of the roaming performers, an other-worldly character wandering through the site, crouched beside Cyrus and began talking to him about the stars. She told him about Sirius, the Dog Star, and how it is the brightest star in the night sky. Cyrus listened with complete seriousness, nodding occasionally as though this was plainly the most important conversation taking place anywhere in Newcastle that evening. To him, it was.

This was where Enchanted City worked best for me, not when it was biggest or brightest, but when art, science, storytelling and a little human connection came together in the dark and made a child think about something beyond himself. That is difficult to manufacture, however impressive your Christmas itinerary.

That became the question I kept returning to as we walked around. We spend a great deal of money trying to create memories for children, yet the things they remember are often small: a conversation, a strange person telling them about a star, a ladder disappearing into darkness or standing beside a fire.

As parents, we remember the ticket price, parking, whether somebody remembered the gloves and the task of getting everyone out of the house on time. Children remember how something made them feel and that also explains why I liked Enchanted City more than I expected to.

It wasn’t frantic, and wasn’t a Christmas market. Nobody seemed determined to entertain us into submission. There was space between things and, importantly, there was space to think. Even the Emotional Baggage drop-off point near the entrance felt rather appropriate. I could have done with leaving several suitcases there.

There were practical things I appreciated too. The experience is step-free and suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs, and there are no strobe lights. I notice accessibility more than I once did because you realise that a “small detail” to one family can determine whether another family gets to take part at all.

The staff and volunteers were warm without hovering, which is a very North East form of hospitality: helpful, friendly and not remotely interested in making a production of it. And because the whole experience is outdoors, take the advice about clothing seriously. Wear layers, then add another one. Vanity has no place in a Newcastle winter.

Yes, although not for the reasons I expected. I would recommend it if your children like space, light, art and exploring, or if you prefer family experiences that allow children to wander rather than shuttle them through a tightly controlled programme. It delivers the visual spectacle without the constant noise and sensory bombardment that can make some Christmas attractions feel less like family entertainment and more like an endurance event.

But I think there is a wider reason to go. Enchanted City reminded me that a successful family outing does not need every second to be filled. Children do not always need bigger or louder, and they certainly don’t need every supposedly magical moment documented for somebody else’s consumption. Sometimes they need darkness, a few lights and someone who knows something about Sirius.

Watching Cyrus move from light to light reminded me how naturally children accept wonder, while adults seem to need a lot more persuasion. We have mortgages and hormones to blame and have become too practised at looking for the catch. But somewhere between the astronaut, the fire and the Dog Star, I stopped wondering whether this was a “good Christmas experience” and enjoyed being there with my family.

In ten years’ time, I doubt Cyrus will remember whether we saw every installation. He won’t remember whether I thought we had got our timings right, whether I remembered the gloves or any of the other logistical nonsense parents carry around in their heads.

But he might remember standing in the dark in Newcastle while an other-worldly woman crouched beside him and told him about Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

I hope he does.

Sometimes they are the tiny, unplanned moments happening while we’re busy worrying about whether we’ve made Christmas magical enough.

The expensive things you planned, or the tiny moments you never saw coming?

Occasional stories, experiments, discoveries and questions from Saffron & Cyrus.