Y’all know I **hate** a Sasquatch. Don’t you know that District Mercantile, a new shop in my hometown of St. Francisville, celebrates Himself? We were driving through town late Christmas Eve afternoon, and my wife insisted that we stop to take a photo.

The St. Francisville Inn has been under new ownership for a few months, and the couple who has it now have undertaken an extensive renovation. It looks great from the outside; I hear wonderful things about people who have seen the inside. Good luck getting a room there for Walker Percy Weekend 2019 (May 31-June 1). Did I tell you that David Brooks is coming?

At my family’s annual Christmas Eve get-together, I spoke to my cousin Daniel, a professional chef, and he told me amazing things about the new restaurant about to open at The Myrtles Plantation.  He’s going to be cooking there, and said that the restaurant is built around a large open hearth. He said the food is going to be Southern, but innovative. The place opens in about a month. They’ve added more rooms to the B&B part of the haunted plantation, so if you’re planning to come down for WPW, you’d be wise to book your room there now.

And look at what they’ve done with the Magnolia cabins! Formerly “3V Tourist Courts,” it’s now called “Magnolia Village”:

It was so much fun driving around town to see the changes since we were last there as a family. After motoring around, we went over to my cousins’ house for the annual family Christmas Eve gathering. Drinking a glass of wine with one of my cousins, I mentioned that this was our first Christmas Eve without Guy Ruth, our aged, cocktail-loving eccentric relative, who passed in the spring.

He said, “Oh no, she’s here.” He reached down and opened up a cabinet, and pointed to an urn on the bottom shelf. “That’s her. We’re going to bury her tomorrow.”

I love my family. Merry Christmas errbody.