Kimberly Adams

People brought like sides and pre-made stuff to like help flesh it out.

But she did the mains.

And then there was another one where she was asking for like your favorite short story or something like that.

Very literary stuff.

And so I the poem that I brought was a poem called The Song of the Shirt, which is this like.

19th century poem about a woman working in a sweatshop and it gets into sort of economic inequality and how this woman, while she's making these sort of high-end shirts for the wealthy, was extremely mindful of her poverty and the gaps and everything like that, which felt very present in this moment.

Anyway, and so I thought that that was a really cool way to kind of blend the two of you get a theme, everyone's bringing something on theme.

And, oh, I remember another, the one that she did that was about short stories.

I brought The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, and then I brought A Bottle of Amontillado.

Most people did either discuss what poem they brought and why, or read a portion of it.

Some people could recite theirs from memory, because it was really special.

Mine is very long, so I couldn't.

But I gave the key stanza that has stuck with me over the years.

I'm a host-it-yourself holiday party kind of person, mainly because I only do a couple of parties every year.

And all of my friends are very, very busy.

And it feels nice for me to kind of be like, just show up.

Don't worry about bringing anything.

Don't worry about making anything.

Just show up, bring your kids and relax.

And I feel like that's kind of the gift I can give my guests is just to just be at the party.