Photo courtesy of the University Club of Saint Paul

All decked out for the holidays in twinkling lights, seasonal greens and flocked little trees, the University Club on Summit Avenue was also filled with bookish folks Tuesday night. They’d turned out for Carol Connolly’s annual Christmas shindig, a special themed edition of her beloved Readings by Writers series. Before the main event the crowd mingled, most of them old friends – shaking hands, clutching shoulders, catching up on gossip – while violin and flute played quietly in the background. We took our seats and, over the course of two hours, 10 readers – an impressive line-up of Twin Cities poets, storytellers and essayists – stepped before the grand white hearth at the front of the club’s Fireside Room to read their holiday-themed pieces for the packed house.

Tom Cassidy started us off with a contrary, witty deconstruction of the old ice-breaker: “If you could invite five people, living or dead, to a dinner party, who would you choose?” Suffice it to say, in his version Andrew Marvell, Santa, Jesus, the “Don’t tase me” guy and Shirley Chisholm all make an appearance; and for dinner, chicken is served and public radio is skewered. Heid Erdrich shared some poems and recipe notes from her new cookbook of indigenous foods. My favorites: an ode to Billy Jack in the form of cowboy beans; a poem redolent of warm summer days and ripe berries.

In short order, Mike Finley had the crowd in stitches and groans with his hammy delivery of MAD magazine-worthy joke-poems drawn from a golden stocking. His friend, baker and poet Danny Klecko, followed soon after to needle some locally sacred cows. Jazz musician and poet Ted King channeled Santa Claus, telling his story as a small-time hustler turned working stiff made good. Jim Lenfesty read us his magnificent, epic “football autobiography.” Mary Lou Judd Carpenter offered a personal glimpse behind the scenes of American history via some candid letters written by her mother, Miriam Judd (wife of congressman Walter Judd). The evening closed with an essay by Eleanor Leonard and poems by Tim Nolan. (I have to confess: To my chagrin, I missed Nolan speak – and got some friendly ribbing for it on my way out, too. St. Paul’s “snow emergency” declaration meant that cars parked on the wrong side of the street risked towing after 9 p.m., so I ran out before the last reader to move my car.)

I read an article recently unpacking a Scandinavian notion, “hygge.” It’s a Danish idiom, one of those slippery, hard-to-pronounce sorts of cultural expressions, impossible to translate directly into another language. Danes say hygge suggests the feeling of sanctuary, coziness and conviviality: candlelight in darkness, the warmth of a fire and dinner with friends when it’s bone-chilling outside. Christmastime and Thanksgiving capture something of the grateful sense of blessing in the feeling, I think. But for Danes, hygge is something  more – something to savor day-to-day, a way of life rather than a swell of special-occasion sentiment.

It’s hygge that I kept thinking of last night in that gracious space – listening to the readers, yes, but watching the audience nod and laugh, embracing them in return.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune book page editor, Laurie Hertzel, read for us from an essay she wrote for the paper a few years ago, about a handmade quilt made for her by her brother’s family one Christmas. The package with the quilt was stolen from her front steps, and she never actually laid eyes on the thing. Hertzel was bitter for a long while about the theft, she admits in her essay. But by the time the next Christmas season rolled around, she found her feelings had changed. She writes:

Somehow, over time, the quilt has shifted in my brain from being the gift that makes me angry to being the best present I have ever been given. I think about David and his family choosing the fabric, cutting the squares, stitching the blocks, drawing the pictures, signing their names. It’s true that I don’t have the quilt, but I don’t need it. I have everything else, all of the things that went into the making of it: the thought, the attention, the generosity, the family, the love. I can see the quilt in my mind’s eye, and it does what quilts are supposed to do; it wraps around me, and it keeps me warm.

Here’s hoping you have lots of such warmth in your future, too. See you in the new year.