Quick Christmas in NC

Merry Christmas Eve Eve! Before we celebrate Christmas, I wanted to drop in with a quick post from our trip this weekend to my childhood home in NC. See the title though? Is this a running theme? A "quick trip to NC"? I feel we are always dashing in and back out, but not sure what the solution is either. We do what we can.

Rest Stop bathroom selfies 

Picnic lunch traditions

So we dropped in Saturday night to the most festive, comforting house this side of the easy coast (my parent's!) around 6 30. Some of my mom's family came to eat with us (yay!) and my aunt and uncle from my dad's side was able to come by and brought the sweetest little gift for Ellie. My brother and his wife were able to stay the night too which was awesome!! We had a great dinner and enjoyed some time together and tore into the presents! Ellie was basking in the glory of all the attention and the most adorable little red tricycle under the tree! That night we all fell asleep watching Christmas vacation. One by one we fell to sleep and one by one disappeared to our own rooms.

Sunday was our only full day there so we all slowly got up and had coffee together. I set my alarm when I go home now so I can wake up early to drink coffee with my folks. Weird maybe but I swear it's one of my favorite things to do. After we were all woken up, we got right back to the gifts! I'd be lying if I said this wasn't one of the best parts that I know we all look forward to. Admittedly, I'm not much on buying gifts but we it comes time to pass them all out and see everyone's reactions, it is always so so worth it.

We had oysters for lunch (YAY!!) and just hung out a bit before we had to say good bye to Jeremy and Sarah. They were heading back to their home to do some holiday entertaining for her family. Before long, some more family came to stop by and my dad began the process of 'grilling' his own hunk of meat to cut into steaks. I put this in quotation marks since it's not a grill technically. But whatever it was, it was so so good and my mom made mashed potatoes and a huge salad. OMG. Thankfully some more aunts, uncles, and cousins and of course our grandma was able to come stay with us to eat. A full house at Christmas is a beautiful thing.

After all the dishes were washed and some good byes for now were said, we all wound down to rest. My mom and dad outdid themselves and we all had a great time for it.

Monday morning we 3 had to slip out kinda early to head back. Short trip but it was better than nothing. We hadn't plan to come originally because of our recent home purchase (she's ours btw, we closed Friday!) but we've a few things on the back burner to go and it was all good. Christmas to look forward to now and a move shortly thereafter. Merry Christmas to all!!! And thank you thank you to our family who stopped by to see us. It always means a lot.
Brittany