Something Old, Something New {Holiday Edition}

Yesterday turned out to be our only free, no-obligation Saturday of the holiday season, and we had two must-do activities on our list! We wanted to continue one of our holiday traditions (something old) and try an activity we've never gotten around to doing before (something new).

For the last four or five years, we have gone Christmas shopping at the Mall of Georgia! Sometimes we have a lot left on our lists to buy, and other times we mostly go to window shop and enjoy the festive decorations. And we always go early in the morning, which allows for up-front parking and a few hours of strolling before the crowds really move in. (Yesterday, by the time we left, people were parked in the grass around the outside of the parking lots!)

We also always start out the shopping trip with a holiday beverage from Starbucks. And what better to pair it with than a Cinnabon??

This year, we didn't have too much we actually needed to buy, so we just made a few laps around the mall. A friend at work had told me about a Christmas promotion JCPenney was doing in which you get holiday buttons (with prize codes) from the register. I saw all the cute designs (trees, Santa, peppermint swirls, gifts, snowmen, etc.) and decided that even if we didn't win anything, they would be cute to have. We got two:

lol

We always end the mall trip by splitting up so we can get any last surprises we need. Then Andrew goes to the car, puts anything in the trunk, and I come out when it's safe. Then I put my stuff in the back seat, and we manage to maintain the surprise! We carried on that tradition this year too and then had lunch before heading back to Atlanta.

Then our "new" holiday activity was going to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for Garden Lights, Holiday Nights! We have wanted to do this since we moved to Atlanta but just somehow hadn't gotten around to it yet.

There are more than a million lights, and we thought it was amazing! It was in the 50s, so we had a touch of holiday chilliness but weren't uncomfortably cold. We enjoyed the different themed displays, walkways covered by trees filled with lights, the "orchestral orbs" giving a Christmas concert, poinsettias inside the orchid center, and maybe a hot beverage or two from the Glow Bar. :)

If you live in Atlanta and haven't been to the light display, you should go! It was well-worth the price of the tickets (plus parking, ahem).

On the way home, we picked up some soup and fixins from Panera to eat while we watched Love Actually -- which is only one of the best holiday movies out there. But given recent events, it seemed even more heart-tugging than usual.

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love.
If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”