Apparently, people in my family tend to be very fertile in March and April because between the second week of November and January 1st our family celebrates nine birthdays.

In fact, both my son’s birthdays fall the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, which has led us to adopt the term Birthmas to describe the later part of December. And let’s face it, having a birthday so close to Christmas is kind of a raw deal. So, after our second son was born, I decided I wanted to do an annual birthday trip the week after Christmas to help make the boys’ birthdays feel a bit more special.

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This year we decided to spend the second half of Birthmas camping at Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park at Daddy Joe’s in Tabor City, North Carolina. We really enjoyed our trip to Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Golden Valley in Bostic, North Carolina, in 2019, so we were excited to finally check out our other “local” Yogi Bear campground. We were able to take advantage of the park’s New Year’s special of five nights for the price of three and booked Dec. 27 – Jan. 1 for a total of $142 per site.

One of the much hyped features of the park is their “quad” sites: four sites organized in a square with a large common area in the middle. We originally didn’t book a quad, but after my in-laws visited the park to scope it out earlier this fall, we changed our reservation. Booking the quad turned out to be a great decision! We were camping with my mom and step-dad and my in-laws, and the kids could roam freely between the campsites and had plenty of room to play. All of the RV sites had full hook-up (water, electric and sewer), and the park also offers cabins and yurts. We did notice the WiFi wasn’t very strong in our section of the park, but the cell signal was great. So, you could easily use a hotspot, if you’re wanting to work or do virtual school from the park. All of the sites are also equipped for cable.

Since the boys have December birthdays, I thought it would be a nice treat to enjoy the park’s indoor, heated pool during our trip. When we arrived, I kept thinking it was strange that no one seemed to be at the pool, but figured it was because the park was capping how many people could use it at a time as part of their COVID precautions. On the second day of our trip, Everett and I decided to go for a swim, and I quickly discovered the real reason the pool was so empty: It was freezing! We toughed it out and made the most of it, but that was our only trip to the pool. I’m sure it’s tough to keep a pool warm when it’s 30 something degrees outside, but we were still a bit disappointed.

The park did have a lot of other amenities to offer, including bike and RC car tracks, playgrounds, ponds for fishing, an on-site ice cream shop, a well-stocked camp store, mini golf, and scheduled activities for the kids. Since COVID is still raging, we spent most of our time hunkered down at our sites, but our interest was definitely peaked. They also have a nice splash zone and aqua play area that looked like they’d be a lot of fun for the kids in warmer conditions. The park was large pretty large, so it was handy that my in-laws rented a golf cart. During the winter months, golf carts are discounted to $30 a day, but in the summer they go up to $60 a day.

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The area was more rural, but there was a Food Lion and a few restaurant within a few minutes of the park. We also ventured up to Whiteville, North Carolina, to fulfill Everett’s birthday wish of going to the Dollar Tree, ha! Whiteville was only about 15 minutes away and had a Walmart and more restaurants and stores. We’d talked about venturing down to Myrtle Beach, which was about 45 minutes away, but never got motivated enough to do it. After the chaos of the holidays, it was nice to just relax and enjoy some time by the campfire.

Overall, we had a very relaxing trip and made some great memories with family! I’m not sure what Birthmas will hold for us next year, perhaps a more tropical destination.