christmas in tennessee

Christmas in the Country

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Jonathan and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary yesterday. I have never had regrets about our Christmastime wedding, as December is our favorite time of year. It also happens to be the first full month that we spent as a couple (back in 2003), so many of our relationship firsts took place around the holidays. For our sixth anniversary we decided to take the weekend back to the basics. We cooked at home on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and ate things we never buy (baked brie in puff pastry with honey, pecans and apple; pizza margherita with real mozzarella and fresh basil; organic strawberries; chocolate; pink champagne). On Friday night, we lit our fireplace and had a picnic on the living room floor. On Sunday, we had a candlelit dinner in our dining room. Coincidentally, it was our very first meal in that room.

For several weeks, we had planned to spend Saturday in Arlington and Covington, two towns we discovered in the summer and wanted to revisit at Christmastime. Our first stop was Arlington, which has a really quaint downtown with an awesome antique shop housed in an old general store. Next we drove to Covington, which has an amazing town square with several coffee shops, antique stores and two old theaters. When we arrived, the first thing we saw was a horse-drawn carriage. Next we saw several people dressed in 19th century clothes. Then we saw kids dressed as characters from A Christmas Story, out promoting their play at the Ruffin Theater. Once we were inside the first antique store (and saw more people dressed in 10th century garb), we realized we had stumbled upon Covington's Dickens' Christmas. All of the shop owners were dressed up, and quite a few of the townspeople were as well! It felt very festive and fun. We finished off the day with a visit to the Collierville Square to see their Christmas lights at night.

Here are some iPhone photos from our adventure...

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