The Homestead - Hot Springs, Virginia

For several years, our family has shared the tradition of spending Christmas at The Homestead. It has become the backdrop of many of our most precious memories.  The Homestead is an historic resort encompassing 2,300 acres amidst the mountains of Virginia.  Founded in 1766, The Homestead is a grand hotel with elegance and southern charm.  As traditional, historic and elegant as it is, the resort has mastered the art of comfort.  Going to The Homestead each year feels like going home.

To say that we play hard while at The Homestead would be an understatement.  Families that play together, stay together, after all.  We start each day with breakfast together as a family.  The Homestead has the most amazing breakfast buffet.  Table after table of yummy things to start your day.  There's a waffle station, an omelet station, grits and oatmeal station.  There's fruit and granola and donuts and croissants.  And not to mention - sausage, bacon, potatoes, gravy and biscuits.  It's a feast!  From there, we each set off to spend our day as we see fit.  For some, that means spending the next half hour to hour in the bathroom.  For others, it means going back to bed for the first nap of the day.  

But the most rambunctious of us will set off to explore the halls and grounds of The Homestead - keen on discovering anything to make our happy hearts sing.  We'll ice skate, play billiards, grab a cocktail, swim in the pool, go to the spa, hike, bike and investigate all other manners of entertainment we can find.  

After frolicking for the better part of the day, we'll meet up and unwind together over Tea Time.  The Homestead's traditional tea service includes hot and iced tea and little "sammiches" and cookies. We'll tell stories of our day and fine tune any plans for the night.  Later in the evening, we'll meet up for dinner.  With a gang like ours, the getting together to meet up for dinner is sometimes entertainment enough.  Dinner is usually a raucous affair of squabbling over who's eating what, story-telling, and awkward toasts.  At the end of the day, we play billiards together or Poker or Scattergories.  Some of us stagger to bed more tired or intoxicated than others.  But, we all go to sleep with smiles on our face.  Keen to wake up and do it all over again.