I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's with friends and family, First name / friend! I'm so happy to have you join me for my newsletter!! 

 

If you know me well or have read my book, you know I love to have our table set… ALWAYS!! You can read about that in the first chapter of my book here. So you won't be surprised by the picture above that I have changed our Christmas table setting over to Valentine's themed! I always love to have my table set, and the transition from Christmas to Valentine's is pretty easy for me since I like to keep the red table cloth and placemats.

 

How was your holiday season? We had a wonderful time! We got to celebrate with our children, their spouses, and grandchildren.

 

After New Year's, we got to keep our Atlanta grandchildren while our daughter and her husband went on a couples trip! We celebrated Christmas with them and had lots of fun!! One of my favorite Christmas gifts from our daughter was this incredibly unique ornament. She found a creator on Etsy who turned my book into an ornament!! 

If you're looking for a fun, new idea this Valentine's Day, my husband, Scott and I have enjoyed having a Progressive Dinner at home the past few years! If the weather is nice, we might have appetizers on the dock looking out at the lake, then move to the back porch for our main course, then finally dessert in the sunroom with candlelight. 

 

Being hospitable means showing kindness not just to friends and strangers, but also to your loved ones in your family - especially your spouse! And this has been a creative way for us to celebrate! 

I want to share a few favorite memories from Valentine's over the years. Maybe this will inspire you to share kindness and hospitality with others in a new and different way.

 

One year, I mailed 44 Valentine's Day cards to friends! I found the most beautiful cards from the card company, Papyrus for just $1 and just couldn't help myself! I have always loved sending “fun mail” to friends and family. Why not surprise them with a Valentine's Day card?! 

 

One of my favorite traditions when our kids were little was to adding a small drop of red food coloring to their milk on Valentine's morning to make breakfast more festive! 

 

I have served tea to the cancer patients at Orlando Health, the organization we're giving all the monies away to from the sales of my book! We wanted to make it extra special for Valentine's one year so we brought some heart cookies to serve with the tea.

 

Are you doing anything special to celebrate Valentine's with your spouse or a girlfriend for Galentine's? Hit reply on this email - I'd love to hear about it!!

 

Thanks for catching up with me!!

Artful Ellijay is a delightful shop in Ellijay, Georgia. My husband and I were in North Carolina visiting surrounding towns that we felt would be a good place for my book. 

I stopped into the Chamber of Commerce in Ellijay, Georgia, and asked for a recommendation of the nicest shop in town. They sent me to check out Artful Ellijay. 

 

As I walked in, I met Damon. He and his wife, Samantha own the shop. 
He was so welcoming and truly interested in hearing my story. 
I left a copy of the book for him to show Samantha and decide if they would like to carry Simple Hospitality. 

They ordered a box of 12 books and imagine my surprise when they changed their order to 24 books!! I’m thankful for beautiful shops around the country that welcome Simple Hospitality and ME, into their world!!  

 

 

Did you enjoy my newsletter? Forward it to a friend! It would mean a lot to me! 💌

 

And if someone forwarded it to you - welcome! I'm so glad you're here! My name is Jennifer Boyd and I recently self-published my book, Simple Hospitality, which has been a dream of mine for over 25 years. In my newsletter and book, I hope to share the “heart part” of hospitality with you! I would love to have you join my email list here!

 

And if you want to check out past newsletters, you can view my archive here.