It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

With our town's annual Christmas tree lighting (with requisite visit from Santa) the other weekend and our first snowfall still misting up our windows it officially feels like Christmas in these parts. Our Christmas tree is lit, our chocolate advent calendars are quickly disappearing, and Christmas jumpers are in heavy rotation--on me at least, Thomas is fairly resistant to the whole theme sweater thing! I don't really need more reasons to revel in the season, but if I was looking for somewhere to really get in the Christmas spirit I wouldn't have to go far--our favorite local pub Tomney's has been transformed into a festive dream. We enjoy this quirky establishment in all seasons, but it’s especially worth a visit right now with the halls fully decked out for the holidays. There are twinkle lights and garlands in every room, fires burning in the open fireplaces, stockings hung willy-nilly, and more than one proper Christmas tree. In fact there's so many cute corners to bury yourself in it's hard to choose where to settle--will you pull up a seat next to the fireplace in the front parlor room that used to be privately owned by the family and now are open to the public but retain some of that homey atmosphere? Or will you have a wander from room to room of the public house established in 1765 letting the live music lure you towards the back. Pro tip: if you go on Sunday evenings you'll be treated to a variety of live Irish music made up of impromptu bands of musicians that sometimes seem to outnumber the patrons perched on stools with warm drinks in their hands. On these dark winter nights it's hard to imagine a more charming place to be...