My Parents' Christmas Visit

Thanks to the horrible ice and snow that central Illinois received last week, my parents' travel plans were altered slightly, but they finally made it safely to Winston-Salem on Tuesday evening. Our days together were so fun and full that I have to focus on just the highlights.


Christmas Eve Lovefeast at Home Moravian Church in Old Salem: A Moravian (denomination of the Christian religion, founders of Winston-Salem back in the early 1700's) tradition that involves a candlelight Christmas Eve church service that includes a sweet roll and a cup of coffee - and this is DURING the service. Can't say I've ever found a napkin tucked inside my bulletin before! And, they're really thinking ahead on how to make sure no one falls asleep during the service - a cup of coffee! (in a mug nonetheless...)


Christmas Day: Santa CAN find Christmas trees that are only 18 inches tall after all... We were going to pretend that this first picture was "our" tree, but who are we kidding, really?! (That's the tree in our lobby).



We got some great gifts! Chris will be doing pull-ups every spare second he gets just for fun, and I will be taking an 8-week horseback riding class offered at Riverwood.

Then, we spent the most glorious Christmas afternoon walking around Historic Bethabara Park reading about the original settlers, checking out some REALLY OLD buildings (from the 1700's), and hiking the nature trails out to the lagoon.

Any other spare moments of the day we spent playing games (cards and a new dice game called "Shut the Box" thanks to my Grammy's new hubby) and watching movies.

We made a pretty fantastic dinner (if I may say so myself) - all-natural ham, organic sweet potatoes, broccoli, cranberry/pear sauce, homemade rolls - and even got a (LOT) of soup for leftovers out of the deal.


On Friday night, my parents got to experience their first professional hockey game with the Twin City Cyclones taking on the #1 ranked team in the league. It was quite possibly one of the most exciting games of hockey I've ever been to - with a score of 4-3 in the first period! We actually won 5-6 in overtime (although I was kind of hoping for a shoot-out to finish off the game)! My mom was on the edge of her seat much of the game and my dad definitely enjoyed himself as well! It was so much fun!

Then, Saturday... we went to Mt. Airy, NC, which was the home of Andy Griffith (and was the real-life inspiration for Mayberry). We started off the day with a tour in the old squad car, seeing the home he grew up in, where he went to school etc.

We went to Snappy's diner, which is mentioned by name in the show and ate their "famous" pork chop sandwich. (I will probably never eat a breaded and fried piece of pork chop with coleslaw, chili, mustard, and tomato ALL on a bun again, but just had to do it for the sake of it all...)

After that, we got a bagful of mix and matched sweets at Opie's Candy Store and then went to the theater that houses a live, on-air bluegrass jam on the third Saturday of every month.

Continuing on, we went to the Andy Griffith memorabilia museum and saw tons of scripts, costumes, records, etc. from every production he was involved in (Matlock, Diagnosis Murder, Brad Paisley's video for Waitin' on a Woman, and much, much more). While we were there, the owner of most of the items, who is one of Andy Griffith's best friends (and has been since elementary school) happened to come in and we got all sorts of personalized stories from the man himself. It was amazing!

Unfortunately, neither Chris nor my dad needed a hair cut, but we did see Frank, who cut Andy's hair for years and is also one of his closest friends as well. He has over 20,000 pictures on his wall of people who have gotten their hair cut by him (including Oprah and other famous individuals).

Another interesting piece of Mt. Airy history/economy is the world's largest open granite quarry there. They say that the granite is so glittery that astronauts from outer space have been able to identify the location simply by its luminocity.


Our afternoon continued with my parents' introduction to a wine tasting and winery tour. Old North State Winery is housed in the original mercantile store from the 1890's and makes some great wines - including some sweet muscadine varietals. (Muscadines are these golf-ball sized grape like items that are native to NC and the southeastern US.)


Finally, we had to finish our day in Mt. Airy with a trip to the Mayberry Soda Shop for some old-fashioned ice cream cones and sundaes at the counter. Yum! Yum!



I know this is a long post, with lots of pictures, but as I said - so much fun! It's crazy to think my parents were here helping us move in exactly six months ago - and that we will be packing up to leave again in exactly six more months! It was definitely a little different to spend Christmas away from our extended families, but we couldn't have been happier that both of our families were able to come visit us for the holidays! (My parents left today, Sunday, and Kate, Greg, Mike, and Jane arrive tomorrow - just enough time to do laundry, clean house, and restock!)