12/19/2024
A curious, personal collage to share in holiday spirit. I made this a year and a half ago remembering all the wonderful gatherings at my grandma’s farm, which was recently sold and is dearly missed (though I still often visit in dreams).
These were the kinds of big family get togethers that had many hands in the kitchen, kids running everywhere, grandma’s layered and overflowing decades-old clutter, an entry way piled with shoes and people coming in stages down the long dirt driveway, some honking as they pulled up to the house and parked all over the yard. All were welcome before it was a thing—many uncles, aunts, cousins and often a current or past foreign exchange student. One Christmas I remember an uncle studying at St Olaf brought his roommate’s family from Vietnam and they brought the food. I think this was the first time fish sauce had entered Isanti County lines.
I love these memories so much, probably because I so loved all the people who came to grandma’s farm and felt so loved, myself.
I guess I share this all because I hope it for us all—a sense of being loved and loving each other in whatever place we gather and whatever combination of people are there. And if you’re like grandma, there will also be a pack of slightly diseased barn cats in attendance, too, which promise their own Christmas cheer.
Merry Christmas to you this year and may you know you are loved!
Jordan
