Mom's Christmas Trip

For Mom's Christmas trip this year, we visited Hershey Gardens for their Winter Walk. Though cold, it was an interesting time to visit the gardens. Usually the focus is on the color of the flowers, but since there weren't any blooming (except for a handful of die-hard roses), you were "forced" to look elsewhere. And elsewhere meant all the different types of pines, greens and unusual plants that look good even in the cold. Even many of the herbs in the herb garden still looked fresh and green - the parsley could have been picked and thrown in a soup that very night!

I was having trouble with the settings on my camera, so I didn't get many photos of the day. The first two are in the gardens and the second two are from the beautiful displays in the gardens' glass-enclosed gift shop.



After touring the gardens, we walked through the old and elegant Hershey Hotel on the hill. I gave Mom a brief tour based on my trip there with my sister several summers ago. The hotel is just gorgeous and worth a walk-through even if you aren't staying there. We visited the little shops inside - our favorite was the cupcake shop with their eye-popping cupcakes and the decorate-your-own-cupcake-bar.


We decided on lunch at The Chocolate Avenue Grill - an excellent choice! I had Tomato Basil Bisque and an incredible salad that had coconut-breaded chicken in it with strawberries, almonds, cucumbers and fresh coconut with a poppyseed-ginger dressing. Our last stop on the way home was an antiques barn that we wandered through for an hour and came up with some fun Christmas presents.


Another successful Christmas trip I would say!