My family frequently gets together for Thanksgiving in North Georgia. We absolutely love the area but especially in Fall. 

This year, as in many past years, instead of spending Thanksgiving Eve waiting in a store, we went for a hike in beautiful Tallulah Gorge. If you haven’t been it’s worth it. Those who know me and many who’ve followed me for awhile know well that I’m not the biggest outdoor girl. Bad luck tends to ensue (insect bites, run in with venomous snakes, etc) but this time was lovely. The Moose and I are proud parents of a seven year old and an 18 month old at this time. We use one of our backpacks from Ireland (Osprey, non-sponsored but just love their products) as our diaper bag and have for about 6 months now. It was perfect for our short hike. When lil bit was Lilo’s age we bought a carrier to be used for hiking and the Moose was thrilled to finally put it to use. The leaves changed later than usual this year so the Gorge was well gorgeous! We spent a few hours and went to Inspiration overlook as well as the North Rim trail (I think). I do recommend Tallulah Falls and the area as a whole. 

Downtown Clayton is full of wonderful little small-business shops and fantastic restaurants. Our favorite food stop this time was The Farmhouse Donuts and Decor (on Facebook as The Farmhouse Clayton). The cow pie and their well all of them really were delicious I just love peanut butter. Their coffee was great with the donuts, very fresh on a particular cool day.

Blue Ridge Toys was an awesome little local toy store with wonderful German and French hard-to-find brands. We got the girls some VERY cool presents for Christmas. The shoppe was wonderfully helpful and even helped us hide the gifts, a worker with elf ears walked with my husband three blocks back to our car carrying a rather heavy wooden kitchen in the cold and then refused to let him tip her. You don’t get costumer service like that many places IN N AMERICA everyday anymore. I hope they do well and we can have the pleasure of buying from them again next year.

Another wonderful, more tourist place we love to go to is Goats on a Roof. It’s a very cute family owned mini-tourist spot with a yummy little cafe and nitro-ice cream. The gift shop inside is fun to look through but toasting marshmallows, drinking hot cocoa and of course feeding the goats is the main attraction. You can also pay a very reasonable fee to get a picture with Santa Claus and a baby goat as well as cocoa and a cup of goat feed. And before you go calling PETA the goats are very well loved and kind of respond to their humans like large house cats. One was roaming around the room visiting with everyone and rubbing up against its Elf trying to get in her lap and have her head scratched.