Life has been hectic. When Delta Airlines shipped Parker Lee her own sky miles card, I knew it was time to plan a quiet, relaxing Christmas at our farm and at the beach.

 

A farm?!?

Yes, a farm, New York City friends. Though, no, it’s not a working farm any longer. (Corralling pigs and horses wouldn’t be very vacation-like, now would it?) But that doesn’t stop me from trying to imagine the days when Mom’s house was a dairy, her kitchen was the milking stalls and my grandfather kept a bull for fun.  (Don’t ask about the latter- no one quite understood…)

The only work on the farm that anyone wants to do nowadays is shuck several dozen oysters and tip the bottle to enjoy a few glasses of white. For Thanksgiving, my uncles had the ingenious idea of setting up a raw bar behind the house, near the lake.  Can we do that again, pretty please?

And can we get together in the mornings and watch the sun rise over the pines and eat slivers of pecan kringle?

“Hello, my name is Brooke and I’m obsessed with breakfast pastries.”

“Hello, Brooke!”

Oh, and what about fried grouper po-boys for lunch and Mom’s seafood gumbo on Christmas day and Jane’s gingersnaps at any hour and…

I need a stocking stuffed full of Spanx.