My grandmother. Last month, I traveled from LA to Chicago to San Fran to St. Louis to Western Mass., culminating in Thanksgiving. Whirlwind! One of the highlights in St. Louis was meeting my cousin’s dear baby and going through a box of old photos of our family.
Here is our grandmother, whose parents came from Scandinavia, in Montana in the 1930s. I had never seen this photo and nearly gasped when we found it. She looks like my grandmother as I remember her, but she is so young, so pretty, so possible. This is before she met my grandfather, married young, and went to England with one child to bear another (my mother) before reaching the age of 20. Before coming back to the farm in Southern Illinois–her husband’s family land–and raising four children in a farmhouse with no hot water until 1977, the year I was born. She also raised, in part, me and my cousins. When I was in high school, she was frying chicken for a local restaurant and driving a school bus. She had gone to beauty school at some point; my mother still has some of her hair equipment.
Also, recently, I spent a day at the Getty with my best friend,
was treated to an amazing Korean meal by a classmate,
experimented with lotus root and other delicacies from the amazing Land of Plenty cookbook for…
an amazing Christmas dinner with my husband. Vintage Advent candle-holder from Etsy, napkins lovingly hand-made in Haiti, plates from a pottery shop in Shelbourne Falls, Mass., chargers from our wedding pattern china.
Today is the shortest day of the year. Doesn’t Daisy in The Great Gatsby say she’s always trying to notice the longest day of the year, and never can? What a sad thing, her youth, her longing for summer warmth and shine (and those shirts!), and always missing it all.
I don’t know what it says about me that I’m noticing the shortest day of the year, but I’m surrounded by Christmas lights, red wine, and plenty of carols and cards. Christmas lights don’t twinkle as well in the light, so I’m thinking that this is the best night of the year to shine.
Lovely table. I am not sure when I have worried about how my table looks. It is something that Mom V did. Even though we used paper plates just the right placemats had to be out and the napkins had to be Christmas themed. Somehow that need to set the “perfect table” has eluded me, I just want to sit down and eat a good meal and enjoy family and friends. Sigh.