Fashion for the Defense : Christmas at Asheville

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and winter break! Christmas this year was rather quiet. We spent a few days visiting our extended family and then took a couple days for a family trip to Asheville. When I was in college, we would take off from Greenville and head to Asheville to start my Christmas break every year. It was a tradition that I absolutely loved, and have greatly missed in the years since I graduated. So we decided that we would revive it this year. Usually we visited Asheville around the middle of December, but I wasn't off work until the Thursday before Christmas so we went the week between Christmas and New Years. Some things were very much the same and some things were very different. In the past we had stayed at the Grove Park Inn, but this time everything was either booked or obscenely expensive, and we had two of our dogs with us, so we stayed at the Holiday Inn in East Asheville. It was very nice, pet friendly and had a great breakfast.

We went up on Tuesday night and started our trip by eating dinner at the Moose Cafe. If you're anywhere near Asheville, this restaurant is an absolute must! It is positioned right next to the farmer's market and is the ultimate farm to table restaurant. And I could eat my weight in their homemade biscuits and apple butter. My munchkin also thought the apple butter was a hit.

Wednesday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and then headed to Grove Park Inn to see the gingerbread houses and stores. However, we were greeted by some rather rude employees who informed us that Grove Park was closed to the public until after the New Year. So if you're heading up that way between Christmas and New Years and want to see the gingerbread houses, make sure to call ahead and make sure they are open to the public!

After that plan was thwarted, we headed over to the Biltmore Village to check out some of the shops. It was an incredibly frigid day so we didn't stay out terribly long. We love the Christmas Shop there so we paid them a visit, and we spent a good amount of time at the New Morning Gallery. I absolutely fell in love with this shop. It was a local artisan shop with art of all mediums; furniture, jewelry, pottery, glass and other miscellaneous types of art. There is nothing that I love more than local art, so the was in heaven! I bought two pottery coffee mugs (I have this weird thing about having to have mugs match in pairs) and a beautiful set of blown glass coasters (I'm also addicted to buying coasters - I have waaaaayyy too many sets, but I love them all!). I always admired my voice teacher's handmade mugs from Asheville and I've been on the hunt for ones that were similar, so I'm very excited to put these new mugs to use and enjoy them.

We got a late start to the day, so we ate a lunch-supper at the Village Wayside. Everyone around the Village recommended it, and it was the only place open without a terribly long wait. The short wait we did have before being seated was totally worth it. The food was absolutely amazing. I had their hamburger and their layer cake for dessert. And they had Cheerwine and Vernors! Restaurants never have those. Cheerwine is definitely my favorite soft drink.

After our meal we drove through the part of Biltmore grounds that you can access without a ticket, and were going to visit the gate shop but Munchkin fell asleep so we returned to the hotel.

Thursday morning we got up and ate breakfast at the Moose Cafe (I definitely ate two biscuits this time!), went to the Gate Shop at Biltmore and then headed home. It was overall a very nice and relaxing trip with which to end the holidays!