Connector Field Notes #16

Holiday hosting

When does the next generation take over hosting holiday meals and community events? How do the rituals and traditions evolve when the hosting torch gets passed? How does technology facilitate these gatherings, and how might it impede them? What norms are observed around the table with regard to using technology?

These are the questions I asked myself at a recent holiday meal hosted by friends- notably, not a friend's parents, but friends my own age. We all mostly stayed off our phones at the dinner table, but we still took a group photo on a phone and used voice activated technology to play music.

The guests spanned generations, and included a range of community members from new people to good friends. To start the meal, one of the things the hosts asked us each to share was how we knew them. This sparked stories, commonalities, and jumping off points for conversation. The only time the table was quiet was when we were all digging into the food.

If you think you recognize someone, say hi

At a recent event, I was coincidentally seated at a table with a number of other people who live in my neighborhood. I had never seen or met most of them before, but I knew it would only be a matter of time before a spontaneous encounter out and about.

It happened a couple days ago on the way home from the office. We both arrived at a crosswalk within moments of each other and didn't immediately realize we had met before- but we both looked at each other a second time and I said her name, with a question mark at the end because I still wasn't completely sure it was her.

Together out loud we reminded ourselves of the conversation at the event, the one in which we discussed how we live a handful of blocks apart. A nod of recognition that we had talked about what part of the neighborhood she was in- and that part of the neighborhood was now right in front of us, a physical reality.

I see a coffee friend date in our future.