HAILEYKINGPHOTOGRAPHY

I spent Christmas day on a farm in Georgia with friend's of my mom's. I wasn't sure what to expect as we drove the back country roads to their one-room, very rustic house. I'd heard stories in the days leading up to Christmas that I was in for a unique experience. Unique meant a wood stove, farm animals, fiddle playing, fresh goat's milk, baby lambs, an outdoor restroom, pies baked with tiny quail eggs, and a coziness that you usually only feel in the comfort of your own home, not with people you've just met. But within minutes of being there I was sitting on the kitchen floor feeding a bottle to a baby lamb. The warmth from the huge wood stove in that tiny room was nothing compared to the friendliness coming from the other ten people around me. There was a table covered in at least five pies, baked fresh that morning from blueberries and pecans picked on their land. After dinner I received a long tour from one of the daughters, showing me the goats, lambs, quail, ducks, and three tents of rabbits at all stages of life. It was cold, raining, and the sun was quickly going down, but I couldn't stop smiling. In my rain jacket and rubber boots I could of stayed outside all night, pretending for the evening to be a farm girl and hold baby rabbits that were just hours old. We ended the evening with hot coffee and pie, carols played by fiddle, conversation, pecan shelling, and one more bottle feeding to Lamby, the baby lamb. It didn't feel like Christmas. There were no presents to unwrap, and no tree to unwrap them under. There wasn't wassail simmering on the stove, or games. But there was warmth and there was music and, most of all, there was togetherness.