I feel like this month (year?) have flown by. I officially start break today, and there will be less than a week until Christmas. I want to cram all the activities in with my son – and there are three things I absolutely must do while we’re out of work/daycare the next two weeks. (I highly recommend these activities to all of my parent-friends!) 1. The Winter Lights show at the NC Arboretum. My toddler absolutely loved it. If you have a train-lover in your family, you can plant yourself in front of the trains and watch them go round and round the tracks. (We did just that for about 15 minutes before promising we were going to look for other trains. We may have lied a bit.) Even if you don’t have a train lover, the lights are so neat. People of all ages can enjoy this. 2. Santa at Antler Hill Village. Escape the craziness of the mall and let your child meet Santa in peace this weekend! We did this last year. My son is at an age of not really trusting Santa (I don’t blame him) so I don’t have photos with the fancy Biltmore Santa. We visited the mall Santa a couple weeks ago and it went as well as you’d expect for a 3-year-old who doesn’t trust the big guy. Also, I spent $27 for a shady photo. At Biltmore, you can take pictures with your own camera. Free. (Maybe the Biltmore tickets or annual passes aren’t free, but the visit is totally worth it. 3. Enjoy Downtown. Some of the Grove Park Inn’s gingerbread houses will be on display at the Grove Arcade (and you can visit on Friday and Saturday, which locals aren’t able to do at GPI during the gingerbread house competition.) My son loves eating at restaurants, so we’ll do that one day. We’ll check out the gingerbread houses and when he needs to burn off some energy, we’ll do just that at Pack Square Park. It sounds like I’m going to have a very busy break. What activities do you recommend around Asheville?