FROM LEFT: With Martha Stewart in 2009, when we first met, via Gina Giordan—who wrote the cover story for this issue; Georgina Bloomberg and I at The Humane Society of the United States event, chatting about how festive we looked for the holidays and her adoration of her Hamptons cover this summer.

In July 2010, I met Martha Stewart at the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs & Champagne gala at Wölffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack. Martha was being honored that year for her work in bringing elegant and approachable cuisine to an ever expanding audience. Aside from wanting to congratulate her on her great honor and wonderful words, I wanted simply to meet her. As our chat drew to a close, Martha enveloped me in a hug. Her public relations team looked surprised; I was pleased, but also surprised. What had motivated it? I had asked her to be on the cover of Hamptons, and she considered it quite a privilege. We have been working together on this project for some time now, waiting for the moment that the timing was right. That moment is now.

With the release of her new book, Martha’s Entertaining: A Year of Celebrations, in which she reveals some of her most memorable family meals, Stewart captures what is so extraordinary about the Hamptons during the holidays. It is a time to entertain exquisitely, to celebrate with your family, to give and appreciate gifts with fabulous flair (as we have suggested in our carefully curated gift guide, on page 88), and to admire the elegance in the villages of the East End. In a place so celebrated for its natural light, it is the seasonal kind—from the bedecked lighthouse in Montauk to the twinkling display by Jenny Ljungberg and her c/o The Maidstone family—that enhances the sheer beauty that surrounds us and imbues it with a true sense of the holiday season.

SAMANTHA YANKS

Follow me on Twitter at @samanthayanks and on gotham-magazine.com

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOE CORRIGAN/GETTY IMAGES (BLOOMBERG)