A New England Christmas

Hi, Friends! Today is all things Christmas Vacation! We just wrapped up our vacation to Chatham and Nantucket and it was absolutely magical🎄 With the occasional travel mishap!

This was our first time in Chatham; A seaside town in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It’s known for its sandy beaches and lovely main street—even in the winter months😉

I was excited to stay at the inn for the holiday season✨

Nantucket, well you know how much I love it there! Grant had surprised me with flights for the Nantucket Christmas Stroll weekend so that was the main purpose of going this time of year! (Finally posting our first Nantucket vacation here.)

Getting There
Thankfully travel from FWA✈️BOS was seamless! Of course I have the best help with luggage

We rented a car and drove to the Cape! More on travel later😅

Accommodations

We stayed at Chatham Bars Inn. The inn is adorable—New England salt washed shake at its finest! The separate cottages reminded me a bit of White Christmas ❄️ #ifyouknowyouknow
Interiors=colonial cottage

Our Getaway

We arrived, hung out in the room for a few (mostly to build a Christmas Lego model & freshen up) and then had dinner at the inn. They have great dining options so a perfect way to start our vacation!

After dinner, a couple of gingerbread reindeer for the win 🙌🏼 Forgot to take a pic of the final product🙃

Day 2

Strolling Chatham

Downtown

Chatham Lighthouse

Seaside at Sunset

Cuddles and an Advent story 🕯️

Dinner at Stars

The gs and I left Grant a bit early, while he waited for his next course—we had to get back to the room for more Christmas fun…

Santa’s Elves came to visit with a book, milk, & cookies🥰

Day 3

Milk and cookies for breakfast 😅

Next stop, Nantucket!🏃‍♀️We left the inn at 8:35 am, Chatham to the Hyannis ferry dock= 30 mins. We needed to check-in at the dock, drive several blocks to park in the designated lot, and all be boarded before the boat left at 9:05 am. Grant dropped the gs and I off. We boarded no problem! And soon after, he came running on just before they set sail.

G and I ended up squeezing in beside a mom and daughter who were the sweetest! All while the little gs occupied a couple of window seats for better viewing of the harbor. They chatted with the couple behind them the entire way. Their new friend sent this pic to me 😂

The hype of the Nantucket Christmas Stroll comes from this Winter Street Series By: Elin Hilderbrand.
Such a fun holiday book series!

And now for The Nantucket Stroll…

Our stroll agenda was pretty chill. The only plan we had was a dinner reservation later that evening and a ferry ticket back to Hyannis at 8:30pm.

We disembarked and strolled the shoppes— ahh I loved being on Nantucket🤍

We snuck in a last minute brunch reservation at Lemon Press 🍋 An old favorite for sure!!
{The Christmas cookies for breakfast weren’t cutting it, ha!}

We finished up in enough time to make it to Main Street for the arrival of Santa on the fire truck.

Next we strolled to the Whaling Museum for the Festival Trees which ended in another Santa spotting 🎅🏼

We met the sweetest people at brunch, and later bumped into them on the street. They reminded us to check our ferry schedule, several had already been cancelled due to bad weather. Ha! Who knew they often cancelled ferries 💁🏼‍♀️ Not me! I checked and ours was good, for now.

The weather was getting worse! We dashed over to The Nantucket Hotel where our friends from the ferry recommended the kids club! We thought this would be a fun place for them to chill. They loved it 🤍

After warming up with rum n’ hot cocoa, air hockey, and a few books we headed out for another stroll! As we were walking, Gentry said, “I’m freezing my buns off in Nantucket!” 😂 Too bad I missed capturing it on video!

We headed to the ferry dock to double check our boat schedule. The attendant recommended that we trade in tickets for the slow 5:30 pm ferry since we had our family on the island— hoping that would go! By the time we ended the evening we had 3 sets of ferry tickets and none that got us off the island. Everything was canceled!

Thankfully, the friend we met at lunch gave us her card to call if we got stuck overnight. G didn’t hesitate to call 😆

How we felt by the end of the evening #hotmess

The next thing you know we are grabbing pajamas at Vineyard Vines to have a change of clothes and have plans to sleep at this kind couple’s home.

Thankfully we had a dinner reservation at Dune—After the crazy weather and ferry chaos it was more about having a dry cozy space and less about the fine cuisine, ha! Grant said he could’ve done without a prix fixe dinner after we showed up a bit soggy! Dune was delicious, nonetheless.

When you order cranberries & get a cran-mocktail🥂

After dinner we met our lunch friends and headed to their home. The funny thing is they had their own dinner reservation at Dune a couple hours after ours — they showed us to our rooms and left us at their home! The gs loved the zebra 🦓 room!!

Day 4

We woke up early to toast and coffee!
I was barely alive, fell asleep beside Gentry in the twin zebra bed so there’s that! 😅

Our ferry tickets were for 7:35 am, so I thought. Thanks to our friends for the ride to the dock!

We arrived just in time to board, scanned our tickets just to find that they weren’t valid! Haha! Amongst the numerous sets of tickets that I had purchased the night before I had purchased the wrong morning ferry. I purchased tickets from Hyannis to Nantucket 😆 I ran to the ferry agent in hopes he could switch them. Nope!! Ahh another boat missed! He said he’d put us on the waitlist. We sat, waited for all of a few minutes. He then quietly called my name and waved 4 tickets in our direction! Ahh!! Thank you sir, we ran to the boat and made it just in time!

We arrived back on mainland and headed for The Chatham Bars Inn to check out of our room.

Last minute strolls downtown when a friend from the local boutique stopped us on the street and said Santa was coming by boat any moment! Oh St. Nick, he’s been a busy man😉🎅🏼

The Impudent Oyster for a late lunch

and when it’s your last day in Cape Cod why not end it with ice cream…

As we were driving out of town we stopped at a cute cheese shoppe for a peruse!

We ended the day with a hotel check in near the airport and called it an early night!

Day 5

Our flight was at 12:15pm. Before we left for the airport we already had a delay that was going to cause for a tight connection in PHL. I said we should just stay in Boston, I would much rather be stuck there than Philly but we went for it and sure enough missed our flight to FWA🧐 So close! The door closed and the plane still sitting there. Our luggage even made it!😂 But not us!! The next thing you know we are without clothing or anything to freshen up and spending the night in the PHL {free} airport hotel! Ha!

I sat my cheeks in the hotel and G ubered with the little gs to Target for a few random goods.

This pic sums the evening up! Grayson was wired, laughed so hard he peed his pants ended with a mix-match Target special— his pajama shirt and Gs unopened boxers as a skirt🤓

They insisted on sleeping on the floor 🥴 and as they piled their blankets, Grayson proceeded to tell Gents, “Our parents think this floor is disgusting but we think it is perfectly fine!” Grant and I were dying laughing😭

Day 6

Breakfast at Green Eggs Cafe.