Christmas at the Greenbrier offers a spectacular kind of holiday magic for kids

If you’ve seen Zombieland, the heroes choose to live in the White House. If I were living in a zombie apocalypse, I’d head straight to the Greenbrier. Let me live in a room where the floral wallpaper on the ceiling matches the club chair.

You can fight me to the day I die from a zombie attack but I will stand by the following statement: the Greenbrier is the prettiest hotel on the planet. IT JUST IS. Stepping foot into the design wonderland of Dorothy Draper is inspirational.

That magic is magnified at Christmas time.

Christmas at the Greenbrier is SPECTACULAR and the hotel adds so many fun activities for kids! My daughter (4), my mom, and I recently stayed a few days.

Allow me to share.

Watch my attempt at a vlog.

I’m learning. Moving on.

Breakfast in the Main Dining Room

Let’s start with the beginning of your day at The Greenbrier. If you’re not a smart person, you’ll skip breakfast in the Main Dining Room. Don’t be dumb. Go. It’s insanely delicious. But I do have a confession, and this is actually a dumb thing I do: I fill up on the salmon bagel station because I LOVE IT SO MUCH but I could actually make this at home. I could not make the waffles with berry reduction and homemade whipped cream or the lyonnaise potatoes, yet… I go for the salmon. Every time. It just tastes better in the main dining room than it would in my kitchen. My daughter opted for Froot Loops.

Shopping

I got a coffee to go in a pretty Jamaican aqua striped cup and we walked around the hotel. Shops are always entertaining for girls – the toy store for me is Yarid’s, the shoe store. The toy store for my daughter is the actual toy store. Since it is close to Christmas, we wrote a lot of letters to Santa with suggestions for gifts, successfully avoiding buying any toys.

Indoor Pool

On a list of her favorite things about the Greenbrier, the indoor pool was the second. The first favorite thing, you may wonder? Froot Loops for breakfast. The pool is gigantic and heated with a large 3 foot shallow end for little swimmers.

Lunch at Draper’s Cafe

Draper’s Cafe has a fantastic, more casual all-day menu and is the only sit-down restaurant open for lunch. Dorothy’s chicken salad and the chicken pot pie are my favorite items on the menu.

Ice Skating

A large outdoor ice skating rink is open from 3 – 10pm! You can rent skates for the day. Honestly, my 4-year-old was not into ice skating the exact moment we got onto ice, as opposed to the hours before where she was super excited about it. My dad took a spin around the ice and then we headed to dinner.

Salon

The spa & salon has a princess package for girls to get their hair + nails done – plus a tiara! We opted for just a manicure. She loved it!

The bowling alley + arcade is open most of the day and is fun for adults and kids!

Santa! I know him!

Santa sits in the lobby in the evening for milk & cookies and story time for the kids. Mrs. Claus reads stories while parents drink wine and kids sit on the floor in pajamas. So so cute! Santa also sits at breakfast so kids can sit on his lap.

Main Dining Room for Dinner

I was a little bit worried about bringing a 4-year old to the fancy Main Dining Room for dinner. However, the Greenbrier is prepared for families and has a children’s menu plus crayons. I was surprised and relieved. She ate Mac and Cheese (omg so good) and then scooted to her Mimi’s lap for ribeye steak. What a life. I had the cauliflower steak with risotto because it was such a unique menu option, plus healthyish, I just had to try it. I loved it. Our entire evening was incredible.

The Forum

The Forum is the more casual dinner restaurant at The Greenbrier. The Italian restaurant only open for dinner (Greenbrier, open it for lunch, too!). Incredible pasta. We ordered room service pizza one night too. Delicious! We did not go to the steakhouse, Prime 44 West, but that’s the most popular dinner spot.

Do you like to travel during the crazy holiday season? We visited the first weekend in December, while Christmas seemed far away and the holiday party schedule was still a little slow. We had so much fun and plan to make it a family tradition!

More Greenbrier : Greenbrier weekend getaway travel journal + Dorothy Draper style outdoor chairs + decorate like Dorothy Draper

for the photo curious

PS – if you’re interested in photography like me, I’m always curious about the cameras used so I thought I’d share: the photos + videos were taken with the Fuji xt30, a camera I cannot recommend enough!! Pool video taken with the GoPro.