Christmas Weekend 2017

Welcome back everyone!  I hope everyone had a beautiful and blessed Christmas.

My holiday was nice, relaxing and filled with an insane amount of good eats.  I feel utterly spoiled!

Friday night started with a fancy night on the town at the Grove Park Inn.  The Hubs and I got a drink in their beautiful lobby and arrived just in time to hear the carolers.  They had the most beautiful voices and I really enjoyed listening to them.  It was so dark in the lobby though, it was impossible to get a photo.

After savoring our drinks, we walked around to look at this years entries for the National Gingerbread House Competition.  If you aren't familiar with the competition, it is an Asheville holiday tradition where the most talented bakers and artists make these crazy elaborate houses.  Most of them it's hard to believe they are made with food instead of clay.  The hotel holds a contest and puts them on display.  It's always fun to see how beautiful they are each year.

After enjoying the houses and the hotel decorations we went to dinner at VUE 1913, which is also in the hotel.  Our food was incredible!

These are the cold smoked oysters.

The Hubs and I also split the octopus appetizer.

For dinner I got the Gnocchi with Burrata, which was one of the most delicious vegetarian dishes I've had in awhile.   Our meal was so lovely and it was the perfect way to kick off the holiday weekend.

Saturday started off slow.  We watched some tv, including some Christmas specials we had recorded.  I also worked out at home, which felt good!

We then went out to lunch at Panera and stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few essentials for the rest of the weekend.

When we got back home we gave Makena a bath, which is always a little ridiculous.

For dinner the Hubs made us Moscow Mules with fresh lime, mint and ginger candies.

We also had a feast of fresh lobster and vegetables.  We got a really good deal from Get Maine Lobster on Cyber Monday which came with lobsters, mussels, crab cakes and soup.   We ordered it then and set it deliver Christmas weekend.  We decided to freeze some and divide the rest of our goodies among two dinners.

Needless to say, this dinner was so delicious!  After dinner we ate Christmas cookies and watched Elf.

Sunday morning started pretty slow again.  I took the day off from working out and the Hubs and I got dressed early to have a Christmas Eve brunch out.

We ate at Tupelo Honey.  I ordered the Southwest Omelet and kids order of Sweet Potato Pancakes.  I could only eat half of it, but I loved not having to pick between sweet and savory.

When we got home it was pretty mild outside (around 50) so we took Makena for a walk.  She got to play with the neighborhood dogs too!  It was really nice to get some fresh air.

After that, I wrapped the last of my presents while watching a Hallmark Christmas movie.

For dinner I made the Hubs and I a small cheese plate.

We also made the other part of our seafood order that we didn't freeze... the mussels!  The one on the right is in a spicy marinara sauce and the one on the left is a white wine butter sauce.  They were both so tasty.

After dinner we watched my all time favorite Christmas movie (and one of my favorite movies ever) White Christmas.  It was delightful as always.

Christmas morning started early with our phones buzzing with videos of our nephews opening our presents, which was wonderful.  We spent the next few hours on Facetime talking to our family.  I don't know what we'd do without that feature on our phones.  It's so wonderful to be able to feel close to family when it's not possible to actually be close.

We then made brunch at home and opened our own presents.  Makena got a stuffed santa, which she proceeded to play with for the rest of the day.

We spent the rest of the day watching more Christmas movies.  I got up to run on the treadmill, but it was otherwise a delightfully lazy day.

For Christmas dinner we went to a good friends house and had another feast.  Everything she made was so delicious and the company was even better.

And with that Christmas 2017 is in the books!

Your turn!

How was your Christmas weekend?