If there is one thing I love about our Christmas tree trips, it’s the fact that there are always stories to tell.  And this year didn’t disappoint.  There was a wedding in the hotel portion of the place we normally stay so it was booked solid (and busier than I recall), so my procrastinating had us renting a condo on property.  It was nice and actually gave us more room than usual but we definitely missed the convenience of being right within running distance of the playroom, pool, breakfast buffet, and more. We were also the only tenants in our building (or any of the surrounding buildings for that matter).  A little creepy but at least we didn’t have to worry about two kids disturbing anyone.  We could have screamed all night and no one would have heard us (not sure that’s too comforting).   Thank goodness “Elfy” our Elf on the Shelf found us. And Connor did coin the place, our new house.  (same as he did our beach house).

We went to a new tree farm, SugarPlum Farms, on recommendation, and it was great.  A bit farther away  – but it was fun, we pretty much made a day of it.  Quite the scenic route to get there, enjoyed the hayride up the moutain, free hot chocolate, an electric train to entertain Connor, coloring for Cailee, and marshmallows to toast courtesy of a visit with Santa (whom the kids were both pretty scared of).

We did swim (most smiles I saw all weekend), we did go to the kids playroom, we had some good eats,  and oh yea, I left my purse there.  Yep gonna be a little lost for the next few days (I realized it was missed 5 minutes from the house).  So there is no doubt, we’ll remember this year fondly alongside the other adventures we’ve had such as, nearly breaking down in Virginia where there really are no Christmas tree farms, 80 degrees with hot chocolate in Asheville, snowing in Maggie Valley, freeeezing cold + a foot of snow on the ground in blowing rock, the heat going out in the hotel our first year with Cailee (not even three months old), the list goes on.  Sometimes its not fun when it happens but we sure do have fun reminiscing.  Thirteen years and running for our Griswold family tradition.

tree20 tree19 tree18 tree17 tree16 tree15 tree14 tree13 tree12 tree11tree21 tree10 tree9 tree7 tree6 tree5 tree4 tree2 tree