Virtual Cookie Exchange 2018

Gray Barn Designs

8 years ago

Carol from Just Let Me Quilt has done it again — created a delicious and beautiful blog hop to celebrate the season. And today is our day to shine!

In case you are just meeting us for the first time, Gray Barn Designs is owned by sisters Cindy and Sandy. Cindy lives in Ohio and I live in western NY. You can read more about us here. We’d love to have you follow us!

We’ve already had more than one heavy snowfall here in New York, so I decided it was time to jump right in to Christmas decorating. My almost 18-year-old son and I drove to Kent Farms in nearby Andover, NY on Sunday to pick out our tree. OMG — I love the smell of pine trees! And I love the story of how this entrepreneurial family reinvented their family farm into both a retail and entertainment destination.

First we perused the trees on the lot and then we walked into the barn/store/cafe to look at their displays — a barn full of free-standing antique doors covered in sparkly real pine wreaths (full disclosure, one of their designers is a dear friend of our family and she’s in this video!). I haven’t been to the farm in a long time — I had forgotten that it is so charming!

As we weaved in and out of the lovely doors, I spotted him… the man of my dreams…

I couldn’t resist him. He smelled like cookies and star dust. I swear that I don’t know anything about those 3-year-olds who claimed I elbowed them out of the way to get this picture,…..

Meanwhile, my son wasn’t having any of this (he wouldn’t even take on those little elfs who tried to stop me, just left his poor momma to fight her own battles<sigh>)…while I was having my picture taken, he hightailed it back outside to finish picking up our tree.

It was a great adventure, to be sure. Now the tree is up in the living room, the smell of pine has permeated the house. Real decorating begins tomorrow when mom comes over to help.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a bit of dusting to do so I can set the table with our new favorite pattern, Christmas in Ohio Table Runner, and a plate of Mom’s Molasses cookies. You can read more about this pattern here.