Gatlinburg Winter Magic

We spent the afternoon and evening in Gatlinburg for our first date from the Date in a Box.  I have heard about Gatlinburg Winter Magic and I was looking forward to going and I am so glad we did.  We had a great time.  Gatlinburg Winter Magic runs for four months (November through February) and the streets of Gatlinburg are decorated with over a million lights. Winter Magic started in 1989 and is a popular tourist attraction.  The lights have been changed over to all LED lights so the lights are brighter.  The downtown area is decorated with white lights with special displays of lights in different areas.  Once you leave the downtown area you can continue to drive through crafters row for colorful displays of bears featuring the different crafts in the area.  We choose to visit Gatlinburg after the holidays and when the local schools were back in session.  It was a good decision because it was quiet and we were able to enjoy the shops and restaurants at our own leisurely pace.  We had a late lunch at Crawdaddys then walked all over downtown.  We even did a wine tasting and moonshine tasting.  We did the wine tasting at Bootleeggers Home Made Wine and they had some great sweet wines (our favorite) but the names they had for their wines were great.  I liked them all and we bought a bottle of Scuppernong.  After the wine tasting we then went to visit Old Smokey Moonshine Distillery.  We tasted almost all the moonshine they had to offer from the flavored 40 proof moonshine to the 180 proof white lightning.  I even tried a moonshine cherry.  The white lightning burned all the way down and I thought it was yucky.  Our favorites were the Apple Pie moonshine and the peach moonshine.  So, I can now say I have had Tennessee moonshine and that it was not bad.  The lights and lighting displays were beautiful and it was a great way to end our day in Gatlinburg.  We had a great time enjoying Gatlinburg with George and Lisa and we found even more things we want to do in Gatlinburg so we will be back!