Recreating Kimball Tables in the Real World

People get so excited for New Year’s Day that there’s an economy built around the countdown to midnight. There’s stiff competition for advertising in Times Square, up-charged bar covers and those goofy glasses in the shape of the digits of the new year. People think optimistically of the fresh start they’re about to give themselves. This will be the year they walk every day, spend more time with their family, delete social media: “New Year, New Me.”

I’m also someone who counts down to New Year’s. And then almost as soon as it arrives, I start my countdown again; usually, that’s on Jan. 1. It’s not because I’ve already fallen short on my resolutions and I need a do-over. Ironically, I’m looking forward to going back to the past for a couple of days.

Every year since we graduated from Holy Cross, my friend Bella has hosted our group of friends at her Rhode Island home around New Year’s Day. With everyone spread out across the country and at various stages in their lives, the last few days of December is the only time of the year when the stars and schedules align for the group and all of us can get together. As we sit around Bella’s dining room table chatting after our scattered arrivals, I’m taken back to my time at Holy Cross.

In what feels like a lifetime ago, my friends and I ate dinner together every night in Kimball. The conversations, debates and laughter we shared while sitting at the long wooden tables are not just some of my favorite memories, but also where I learned. My friend Marya once told us about a botched translation someone made in her practicum that had the students and the foreign language assistants laughing for the rest of the class, which is how I learned that Latin doesn’t have definite or indefinite articles. One night, my friend Amanda referenced the spectrum of morality, spanning from evil to good. Her comment unexpectedly turned into a lively discussion, one that reverberated for days later as we shared “research” that supported our individual perspectives. While eating stir-fry, my friend Tess introduced me to new music as she planned the spring concert. Sometimes I’d lose myself in the stress of my economics problem sets and Italian papers so much that I’d forgotten that learning wasn’t limited to studying, writing and exams. By just being with my friends, I was acquiring knowledge of subjects I had never studied and interests outside of my own.

During our 2024 New Year’s get-together, we talked about how nostalgically we thought of our time at Holy Cross. Not only did we miss our conversations — intellectual, heartfelt and silly — we missed being involved in the mundane aspects of each other’s lives. When we were at Holy Cross, we knew when someone would be staying up all night because they had to catch up on “War and Peace” for their seminar the next day, or when someone was looking for a vacuum because their sister was visiting and she’d be sleeping on the floor, and even when someone was upset that the Lobby Shop was out of yogurt — again.

After graduation, it seemed like we were only finding out about each other’s life developments, from our high successes to our frustrating challenges, long after they had happened — when the time to be cheering them on or offering a listening ear had long since passed. It’s work to keep in meaningful contact with someone.

After saying goodbye to my friends, I drove three hours back to Boston thinking of a solution to our problem. Our group chat was quiet while we were in college, it wasn’t going to suddenly take off now, and coordinating Zoom calls was too reminiscent of the time we don’t speak of. We needed something that was fresh and flexible. Something that made people excited to share and eager to listen.

A few weeks later, an idea was proposed: a digital newsletter. With enthusiasm, the inaugural edition of “The Crusader Chronicles” came soon after. Once a month, I send my friends a Google Form with two spaces: one to write about what they have been up to and one to submit photos. After giving everyone a week to send in their forms, I compile the responses into one file and send it back to the group so that we can read and leave comments on each other’s responses.

Two years later, it’s still going strong. We’ve written 25 editions, and I don’t envision it ending anytime soon. When I’m reading our newsletter, I feel the same way I did while I was at Holy Cross: supportive, intellectually engaged and encouraged. I was so proud of my friend Kathleen when I read that she accepted the position of STEM coordinator at a Catholic school in Baltimore. I learned British history when my friend Nina would write about exploring London in between her Shakespeare studies graduate classes. And when I dislocated my shoulder after falling while figure skating, my friend Hannah called to check in on me before she even finished the paragraph, and her concern made me feel a little better. Now in our mid-20s, my friends and I lead uniquely successful and fun lives, ones worth writing and reading about. We wouldn’t be where we are, and we certainly wouldn’t be friends, without Holy Cross.

To the class of 2026: Congratulations! Celebrate what you’ve accomplished so far, and be excited for what lies ahead. While there is so much to look forward to, also expect to be looking at your calendar in frustration. In the near future, you’ll be asking yourself how you once spent a week down the Cape with your entire class, yet now you can’t find a free afternoon to meet a friend for lunch. If you put the same type of effort that you put into studying for your exams and writing your papers into staying connected, you’ll never feel too far from your Holy Cross friends and memories, no matter how many miles separate you, or how many years have passed.

I imagine that your goodbyes after commencement consisted of many promises to stay in touch, so make good on your part to keep your word!

Gabrielle Tammaro ’22 is an investment consulting performance analyst in Boston. She is also a member of the Holy Cross Alumni Association Board.