My secret santa lives in BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA! She sent me the most thoughtful and gigantic package of tasty treats that are right up my alley!

Something my secret santa didn't know...

I met my husband in New Orleans and went to school in Louisiana. We moved to New York City and live in Manhattan - we've been here for the better part of a decade. We have a massive soft spot in our hearts for NOLA and miss so many things about the years we spent there. When I opened the package with my husband at my side we actually both teared up. There were things in there that hit a massive sentimental chord in us - things we used to have and used to enjoy that we haven't even seen for 7 years. Things we associate with the beginning of our relationship, our wild times in school, our start at life. After opening the box, we started talking about maybe, just maybe, moving back there one day.

The box was stuffed to the gills with treats like sodas we used to enjoy, beers we used to crack open on those hot humid nights on the front porch, seasonings we used to put on top of EVERYTHING (that they just don't have up here in the Northlands), Zapps (which I basically lived off of in college), tasty fresh raw honey (I'm almost out at home!), the very same exact jelly that I used to pull over and pick up from the roadside stand on the way to med school because it's just so dang good on toast... and to top it all off, the most ADORABLE T-shirt for my daughter (and it fits her PERFECTLY). She carried it around the house ALL NIGHT LONG sniffing it because it very vaguely had a Tony's scent on it and she LOVED it, then played all the next day in it on the playground.

Thank you for the AMAZING gift and AWESOME memories! That was so much more meaningful than a box from someplace I'd never seen or known... that box made us cry. Thank you!!!