Christmas in Minnesota

December 22–27, 2015

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Jojo and I drove to Minnesota for her family’s holiday celebrations. We stopped first in St. Paul to do some shopping — the Mall of St. Paul, Cooks of Crocus Hill, Wet Paint. Wet Paint is the kind of art supply store that makes you want to buy things you don’t need and start projects you’ll never finish. I always leave with something.

On Christmas Eve morning we had breakfast with Clara and Kaitlin at Wise Acre. That evening we went to her grandpa’s house on her mom’s side, which is tradition. Libby arrived. But first we had to push Ken out of the driveway — he’d slid on the ice and gotten stuck, and the whole family was out there in the cold, pushing a car before the food was even warm. That’s how holidays actually work. Not the postcard version. The version where you’re sweating in your good coat shoving a bumper while someone says “turn the wheel, turn the wheel.”

After food and presents we went back to the Winters’ and went to bed. Christmas morning we opened gifts from each other and got ready for family to come over again. The 26th was Jojo’s mom’s birthday — we ordered Vietnamese takeout. The 27th, Libby, Jojo, and I went to Burrow downtown for dinner.

It was a good stretch. Jojo’s family does holidays with a warmth that I’d been missing in my own life for a long time. The house was always full. There was always food. People showed up and stayed and it was easy in a way that family gatherings aren’t always easy for me.

Then we had to drive home.