Christmas Dinner

It's the end of Christmas day, and it's been a good one here in Podunk. I got up fairly early and finished up some housecleaning in preparation for having my family over for Christmas dinner. This is the first time that I've done the whole Christmas dinner thing myself, so I wanted everything to be just so.

I've done a potluck Thanksgiving for my friends, and I usually do a brunch for my family on Christmas, but for too long now, my family hasn't had a big meal for Christmas or Thanksgiving. We always seem to have some major crisis, personal or physical, come up right at Thanksgiving or Christmas, and the whole holiday gets sort of preempted. The holidays just seem to get lost in the shuffle, and I miss them terribly.

Despite my best intentions to the contrary, it happened at Thanksgiving this year. I had a big family meal planned, and I had sworn that come heck or high water, we were going to have the full-on turkey dinner at my house. I had even gone so far as to buy a very lovely tablecloth for the occasion, but then my mom got sick, and the whole thing just sort of fell apart. We had a small meal, but nobody felt much like going to the effort involved to do a big dinner.

About a week after Thanksgiving, though, Dad got a ten-pound turkey, already seasoned and cooked, from work as a part of his Christmas bonus this year, and that was the centerpiece of the meal. This time, the hard part was already done, and I knew that I could do the rest if that killer part of it was already done for me.

I dealt with the remaining preparations for the turkey and about half of what was left of the rest of the meal and my mom brought the other half. I used the beautiful red linen tablecloth I got on sale a few years ago and have never had an occasion to use and put one of my favorite 1940's luncheonette cloths over it, one with Shiny Brites and holly on it. I used my good white Southern Living dishes and pulled out candles, too. It was no Martha Stewart production, but I was proud enough of it to have taken a picture of it.


We all sat down and had a meal at the table, not in front of the TV, not sitting on the couch, and it was wonderful. We should do it more often. Although there were far fewer of us than there were when this was my Granny's house, it reminded me of those Christmas dinners we had then. I think this house has missed being a place where people come for those together times. I know I have missed those times being held here. It's so hard to make those times happen with schedules being what they are, but as I was smoothing my hands over the tablecloths, laying them out and enjoying their colorful patterns, I kept thinking to myself, "Why isn't this a priority, too? Isn't this time just as important, just as vital as the other things that I do?"

The best gift I got today wasn't in a box or an envelope, although I am grateful for those things, too. The best gift I got was having my family with me around my table spending time together. Even after everyone was gone and I was washing up in the kitchen, I still felt the glow of it like a candle flame. What a beautiful thing to have been given for Christmas.