Christmas week, we stayed one night at the Hotel Drover, with some friends of ours who live in Dallas. Located in Fort Worth, a few steps away from the Fort Worth Stockyards, the Drover is a Marriott autograph property which creates an annual Christmas experience that our friends were very excited to share with us.
Our friends are transplants from Massachusetts and the U.K., and go to the Drover each year with their young children. Mom and Dad are well-accustomed to December cold and snow (as are we), and those were the only two missing elements in a very Texas Christmas display.
Outdoor hot cocoa, Christmas-themed drinks, smores over a roaring fire and endless strings of lights illuminating the highly festive area created great family fun. There was also a rustic elegance – Texan style – inside of the well-decorated Drover Hotel. Per the website, the hotel calls this special experience The 12 Days of Drover.
We participated in all activities except the Stockyards Rodeo Rink, an ice rink somehow frozen in the warm Texas air for its patrons (located on the Stockyards site). Other highlights included cowboy Santa with real reindeer, all receiving a hot stamped leather luggage tag and hard copy photo prints taken with Santa.
The name “drover” represents people who worked in the cattle fields. “Droving” is the walking of livestock long distances to market or pasture. I thought this explanation from the hotel website was worth sharing…
“Drovers roamed the Texas plains for decades, herding longhorn cattle from the south and driving them north through Indian Territory to railheads in Kansas. Fort Worth served as the final stop on their way north and as the first chance to rest on their return back down the Chisholm Trail, bringing money that fueled the economy and a pioneering spirit that fired the soul.”
I would be remiss not to mention the in-house kitchen and bar: 97 West. It was delicious and again, Texas-themed!
We enjoyed the Hotel Drover at Christmas experience, especially because there were little ones with us. We were grateful for our friends invite, as we would have never otherwise heard of, nor visited this gem in Fort Worth.
Tales from a Mid-Lifer 
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