Christmas in the Smokies

So back in October I saw this feed on my Facebook page advertising for this Christmas festival in the mountains of North Carolina, in a tiny town named Dillsboro. The name of the festival is the Dillsboro Festival of Lights and Luminaries Walk. This is held annually. It is usually two weekends in December. This year the Festival was held Dec.8 and Dec. 15. I mentioned it to my husband, and by mention it I put in on our family calendar so he could see it. Anyway, he surprised me by booking us a room in the town of Sapphire, NC so we could go.

Now Ken {hubby} is the best at finding places to stay. He used hotels.com to find us the best little place to stay in the mountains, Brook Trout Inn. When we got there they had upgraded us to their 3rd floor room and it was so quaint. It had a dining, kitchen and living room and the bedroom was large enough for a queen and king size bed. There was a washer/dryer unit and a double vanity in the bathroom. So perfect for our party of five. While this is located in the mountains the Inn wasn't over the top rustic. The common area had games and they provided breakfast the next day. Check out some of the photos!

Brook Trout Inn

Ken also had our evening planned out. Like I said before he is a great researcher of things and doesn't like to waste a minute. We had about an hour drive from where we were staying to Dillsboro. This was due to the fact that we had our wires cross. I had told him the festival was near Cashiers and he looked for rooms near there. After we realized our miscommunication we decided to keep our room because of the pictures of where we were to stay looked so charming. Anyway, we arrived in Dillsboro around 5:30 and immediately went to eat at Kostas restaurant. It was moderately priced and had a wide range of menu options. This was a perfect place to eat because it was located in the center of festival, so after dinner we walked around the festival and enjoyed the lights.

The festival was so cute. All the shops were lit up and there were a variety of stores to roam in and out of. Everything from knick knacks to shoes and jewelry were open later for this festival. The streets were lined with paper luminaries and it just made you think of a simpler Christmas. There were free wagon rides pulled by donkeys, s'mores, caroling in the church, elves passing out candy canes and even a robotics team that allowed kids to operate their robot {this made Abbie's night}. The highlight of the night for Abbie was writing Santa a letter at the local post office. When we got there they told us that Santa would write Abbie back. If I am honest, I really didn't think she would get a response but sure enough about four days later Abbie received her letter from Santa. To say she was over the moon would be an exaggeration.

Abbie with the robot

When leaving Dillsboro, we drove through Sylva which is about five minutes away to the see the beautiful Jackson County Courthouse decorated for Christmas. It was definitely worth the quick stop.

Jackson County Courthouse

As previously mentioned, hubs is a planner and he loves to find all the things one can do in the places that we travel. In researching the Cashiers area, he discovered that we were staying close to a waterfall that we could go hike to. So on Sunday, before heading back to Charlotte, we attempted to go see the waterfall. I do not suggest trying to go hiking the weekend after a storm that dropped 12 inches of snow in an area, but we did. The trail was easy enough but there were several downed trees as a result of the storm. I gave up long before, Ken and Abbie, but they never did make it the waterfall. We want to go back for another weekend to the Cashiers area to go hiking and looking at waterfalls in the Spring. So to make a semi-long post short, this is a great little get away to make at anytime of the year, but if you are looking to do something special next year around the holidays, keep Dillsboro in mind.