This past weekend I took a quick trip up the mountains of North Carolina to visit the Biltmore Estate with my aunts, cousins, and some family friends. It’s the largest privately owned house in the US, and the architecture is absolutely breathtaking. Every Christmas, the estate gets a Christmas makeover with different themed decorated trees in every room, so we headed over to take in the home. I’ve been to visit Biltmore probably 6 or so times, and you may have seen it in scenes of Macaulay Culkin’s Richie Rich.

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Even though we were in the mountains in December, it was a surprisingly warm day. I kept it simple and sweet by just going with a top that I liked and doing my hair. I didn’t want to have to carry around coats, scarves, jewelry, etc. but I still felt very “dressed up” with the top I chose.

I got this top from Kohl’s, and it is actually a dress. T-shirt/sheath style dresses never ever fit my hips correctly, and this dress was the same. They always fit fine up top, but are too tight against my hips. Since this dress was short on me anyway, I just pulled it down to my hips and stopped there.

I really love the high neckline and the sleeves without lining. I am always going to be weak for lace designs that have scallop details (see one of my other favorite laces here), and I’ll admit that I wore this top about 3 times in a span of 10 days. When you like something, you like something. What can I say? 🙂

(Kohl’s top/dress, City Chic jeans, Old Navy flats)

Simple outfit, but one I love. Biltmore didn’t disappoint. I added a leather jacket later in the day after stupidly eating ice cream while sitting in the cold (it was yummy though!), and having a longer top ended up being perfect since the tour has a lot of climbing up stairs, etc.

What do you do to celebrate holidays/winter time? Any cool local places that have interesting traditions?