Taste of Merry Farm is a Feast of Holiday Festivities

Knott’s Berry Farm has really stepped up to the challenge of 2020 — their various “Taste of” events have been a bright spot in a difficult year. For the holiday version of their food festival series, Knott’s has leaned into a down-home and folksy Christmas.

While the usual version of Knott’s Merry Farm couldn’t happen as normal, they offered guests a Taste of Merry Farm filled with comfort foods, twinkling lights, a socially distanced visit with Santa and Peanuts characters, and a surprising amount of entertainment. Here’s what you can expect to see at Knott’s Taste of Merry Farm, which runs on select days now through January 3, 2021.

Taste of Merry Farm

Over the course of the past few months, Knott’s has held a series of food festivals (one for Ghost Town, a park-wide festival, and a special event for fall/Halloween) and each one has subsequently gotten bigger and better. Knott’s has mastered operating under state restrictions, to the point where I almost prefer the laidback vibe of these festivals to the screaming riders of the roaring coasters above much of the park. These festivals are as close to a full-on theme park experience as you can get in California right now, and we’re already looking forward to our next visit! Let’s take a quick tour around Merry Farm . . .

Every area of the park is decorated for the holidays. Even walking through the California Marketplace outside the park, every shop and lamppost is decorated with garland, wreaths, and ornaments. And once you’re inside the park, it’s scaled up even further. 

There are floral displays scattered about, featuring red and white poinsettias plus heads of ornamental cabbage. 

Ghost Town is lightly rethemed to the story of Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol.” More on that in just a moment. 

Safety-wise, Knott’s has continued to make guests feel reassured and comfortable during their visit. You’ll find an abundance of hand sanitizing and hand washing stations, significantly reduced capacity in stores (thanks to the county’s new Purple tier guidelines), and audio announcements for guests to properly wear masks over their mouths and noses. The themed mask-wearing announcements from Taste of Fall-O-Ween didn’t make a return for this festival, but we did hear Santa make the end-of-day announcement once the festival closed at 9pm.

It’s a small detail, but it makes walking around the park a lot easier. The barricade at the back of Calico River Rapids has been removed, so now guests can make a full loop in that area of the park without needing to double back.

Over at the upcoming attraction, Knott’s Bear-y Tales, the area is decorated with boysenberry ornaments and purple lights. Totally on-theme for the highly anticipated attraction. 

The shop next to Bear-y Tales is a holiday shop, and includes a holiday art gallery.

Inside the shop, you’ll find all sorts of seasonal goodies, including this Spirit Jersey! We’ve got more on the merchandise around the park a little further down.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s move on to the real star of the show, the food!

Favorite Foods

When it comes to theme park food, Knott’s runs circles around its competition. Normally, their specialty is fairground-style foods like corndogs, funnel cakes, and flame-grilled BBQ. For Taste of Merry Farm, the park has gone wild for all things Thanksgiving related— turkey, stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, sweets, and much more. This festival has over 60 unique foods— all with a holiday flair. For the sake of brevity, we’ve picked our favorites from Taste of Merry Farm here, but you can read the full listing of foods in the article below.

Knott’s Berry Farm Update: A Taste of the Merry Holiday Season Ahead

Our team’s unexpected favorite item was a nice reminder that good food doesn’t need to be fancy in order to be delicious. The Deli-Style Turkey Sandwich was simple— sliced turkey layered with brie and arugula and a boysenberry-cranberry relish serve with fries— and it was everything it needed to be.

One of the items that really stood out was the flame-grilled Apple and Chicken Sausage with Boysenberry Mustard. It was tangy and just perfect for a chilly evening.

The next three items are all twists on the traditional Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. The Turkey Dinner Big Bites are a personal favorite during this season (deep-fried balls of mashed potatoes, stuffing turkey, and cranberry sauce). As soon as I made it into the park, I made a beeline straight to the first place I could get some! They didn’t disappoint. I’d buy a ticket just to eat these delectable morsels. 

Next, there are the Turkey Dinner Tater Tots, which are tots covered with turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. This was Dusty’s favorite of the night.

Finally, there’s also the Knott’s Holiday Bowl, which is the park’s take on KFC’s mashed potato bowl. It’s a hearty serving of mashed potatoes and topped with gravy, chicken tenders, stuffing, corn, and cranberry sauce. This one was a bit of a miss in comparison to the other two Thanksgiving dinner-themed dishes, but definitely a great option for someone who’s hungry.

Ending this section on a sweeter note, here’s a few of the desserts you can find at Taste of Merry Farm. You could easily use a whole tasting card just on desserts (I fully anticipate that happening on one of my upcoming visits!), but just know that you can find many of the popular options at more than one booth (so if the line is too long at one booth, you can check out another one). One of the most talked-about options is also the most photogenic. . . We really loved how adorable (and tasty) the Blitzen’s Christmas Tree Bundt Cake was. 

Next, we’ve got the Eggnog Brûlée with a Butter Cookie. It’s a hefty sized portion of créme brûlée (it’s larger than my palm, and I’ve got big hands!) with a crispy broiled sugar top. The butter cookie didn’t necessarily need to be a garnish, but I certainly appreciate any sugar I can get.

Finishing up our desserts section, we’ve got Comet’s Cinnamon Bun— which is a cinnamon bun, dipped in churro batter, deep-fried, and drizzled with a maple glaze and pecans. If there’s one dessert that you need to try, it’s definitely this! Keep in mind, this is an extremely rich dessert and could be (should be?) shared. 

The number of food options at Taste of Merry Farm can be a bit overwhelming. I strongly recommend making a list of foods you want to try in advance (and make a note of which booths they are located at). While most booths had waits on opening day of 5 minutes or so, we did run into an instance of waiting 20 minutes at Fiesta Dogs and saw a couple other VERY long lines during the evening. But because most of the most highly sought after items were also available at booths with much shorter lines, it really isn’t necessary to get into a long line. 

Holiday Shopping

More of the shops around the park have reopened in time for the holidays, AND you’ll find dozens of artisans selling items all over the park which are just perfect for gifting. The shops are decorated with Christmas trees, garland, and ornaments— and that’s on top of the Christmas decor they’re selling! 

The stores have a wonderful western charm to them. 

You’ll find holiday merchandise of all sorts. There’s even seasonally-themed masks. 

At the moment, non-essential businesses in OC have to reduce their capacity to just 25% of the max capacity in order to allow for social distancing. But the craft vendor stalls are all located in open-air locations around the various areas of the park. There are nearly two dozen local crafters selling items for this festival.

Don’t forget about Knott’s seasonal food items. These are available both inside the park and also at the Berry Market in the California Marketplace.

For Taste of Merry Farm, several artisans are displaying their crafts in a live setting. The glassblower, glassworker, and woodcarver have outdoor stations where you can watch them work. Some use wireless microphones so you can hear them explain their art while they are making their creations. 

Entertainment & Holiday Magic

Operating a special event during the current Purple tier restrictions has called for some creativity. But Knott’s has proven again that thinking outside the box pays off! In Ghost Town, there are live actors on the balconies of different buildings that each play a role in the classic story of A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, plus a few others from the tale call out to guests and exude elements of the classic story in an impromptu manner. 

Additionally, there is live entertainment throughout the park. Also in Ghost Town, you’ll find a handbell choir/vocal quartet, plus a light show (that usually involves fake snow, but not this year it seems).

The Christmas Carol story is continued in the graveyard, with the addition of Ebenezer Scrooge’s headstone. Similar to the spontaneous projection show from Taste of Fall-O-Ween, various ghosts pop up every few minutes to tell another segment of A Christmas Carol. We have some snips of the experience for you below:

It’s a neat blending of Christmas and the scarier side of Knott’s. 

Although the fan-favorite “Merry Christmas, Snoopy” ice show couldn’t take place this year, there were recorded segments shown on a big screen at the Calico Mine Stage. And there was also a magician that was entertaining guests on the stage at various times in the day.

Around the park, there are a few opportunities to meet with your favorite Peanuts characters and even a socially distanced photo op with the jolly old elf himself. Santa’s cabin sure is well decorated inside! According to Knott’s staff, only one party is allowed in the building at a time to meet Santa.

Inside the Dance Hall, the area is fully decked out with Christmas trees, presents, and a bear driving a reindeer-led sleigh?!

We heard from an employee that Knott’s will soon allow you to make your reservation to meet Santa online before your visit. 

There are also additional photo ops around the park with various Peanuts characters. On the second floor of the Charles Shultz Theatre, there’s a meet and greet with a rotating set of characters.

And in Camp Snoopy you can meet with Santa Snoopy!

On the Boardwalk, there’s a really interesting entertainment bit. Broadcast throughout the area is what sounds like a radio program of holiday favorites over the years, along with some charming commercials. But once you’re down by Coasters Restaurant, you’ll actually find that the radio show is hosted live! It’s a clever detail that makes it much more endearing.

The HangTime coaster also does a light show to the music!

Even Coasters Drive-In is themed for the season. 

Camp Snoopy

The transformation of Camp Snoopy from an unassuming kids’ area into a winter wonderland really brings the magic. It’s not quite as in-depth of an overhaul in comparison to Fall-O-Ween, but the lights and characters are whimsical and the perfect kiss goodnight at the end of your Merry Farm day.

The entire river valley is flooded with lights, candy canes, packages, projections, and more. It’s pure magic.  

Just like with Taste of Fall-O-Ween, the attractions in Camp Snoopy are occupied by riders. Though, instead of skeletons, this time around the riders are gnomes! 

Dusty stitched together some video snips of our evening at Knott’s Merry Farm, it’s just 90 seconds, so just hit play and enjoy: 

 

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Let’s Hear From You

We really enjoyed Taste of Merry Farm. Many of our staff and friends attended during the first two days of operation, and most are planning on returning at least one more time during the event’s duration (myself included). For $40, you get more food than most folks could possibly eat (that’s Knott’s portion sizing for ya!) and enough holiday cheer to put you in the spirit for Christmas. Knott’s really tries to make their park a welcoming environment and safe place to be for the holidays.   

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