Life Above the Mason Dixon: Christmas Recap

Now that the hustle and bustle of the season has passed, I can finally sit down and sum up our past couple of weeks. While I have haven't had much alone time between our visiting families and the girls being home from school, we were blessed to have our families here and couldn't have been happier having them all in our home for the visits. It really made our first Christmas in PA so much better! So here's Part I....


Flower Tree

My parents and sister came in a few days before Christmas, but failed to bring me some warm weather and sunshine! Instead we introduced them to their first white Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve at Longwood Gardens (for my southern pals, think Biltmore Estate with less house and way more gardens).   I had been told by several PA pals that this was a "not to miss place" at Christmas time and it did not disappoint. The gardens and conservatory were filled with beautiful flowers and lit up as the evening sky darkened.   It was truly a beautiful place that was only made more magical as the snow began to fall during our tour of the estate and grounds.   It was once owned by the du Pont family and the history of the place dates back to the 1700s - a little of the history can be found here.   It is worthy of a repeat visit and cannot wait to do so this spring when many of the flowers are in bloom.

The girls had a great Christmas morning - Santa was good to us all this year! A received her pink guitar and has been in singer/songwriter mode ever since.   M is enjoying all the American Girl gymnastics equipment and clothes for her doll.   And as much as I tried to fight it, we ended up with a giant 3 foot piece of plastic most commonly known as the Barbie Dream House.   I give that gift about 1 month of playtime and then will be used as a giant doorstop! And I failed to capture a single Christmas morning picture - yikes!   Hubby got it all on film, so crisis diverted.

After all the gifting, we spent the remainder day nestled by the fire and just enjoying our time together as a family. We had great plans to travel to Washington Crossing, PA to see the reenactment of Washington crossing the Delaware river, but between the snow, wind and blistering temps - the decision to stay in was not difficult to make! Maybe we will try that next year.... Instead, we ate, drank and enjoyed staying in our jammies just a little longer than normal.

It was hard to see them all leave, knowing it would be a while before we are all back together again.   We were only lonely for just a couple of days before our next set of family arrived....that adventure will be posting in Part II.