A Celebration of Family Life

Excerpted from
Come to the Table; A Celebration of Family Life
By Doris Christopher

Over the coming year, the majority of us will probably consume somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand meals-everything from breakfast bagels eaten on the run to the occasional multi-course dinner. Most likely, we'll eat roughly half these meals by ourselves, while doing paperwork at our desks, say, or catching the seven-forty-two express to the city. We'll skip a few breakfasts, all the while knowing we shouldn't, and pick at countless luncheon salads during corporate meetings. There'll be the occasional ball park hot dog, movie popcorn, or shopping mall burger. Now and then, we'll have brunch with a friend.

That will leave perhaps two or three hundred "family meals," from bowls of cereal silently gobbled at dawn to Friday night pizzas (delivered); from peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches served as after-school snacks to the turkeys on our Thanksgiving tables. The moods, like the menus, will no doubt run the gamut, from the giddy excitement of the first day of vacation to the mind-numbing bickering that accompanies too much rain. We'll experience the contagious silliness that erupts at the end of a long week, as well as the sudden shyness that comes to the table with guests.

As is true of virtually everything we do with our families, all will not go according to plan. Beans will burn, milk will spill, and no one will care for the lentils. Children will, now and then, leave the table in tears, and so, once or twice, will their moms. And yet, for all that, there'll be moments of joy that will more than make up for the tears, moments that will live on in our mind's eye forever. Like the sight of our sleep-tousled children bundled up in their warm flannel robes, their mouths filled with hot pancakes and syrup on a freezing cold Sunday in March. Or the picture they'll make in their new holiday outfits, all impeccably neat, clean, and pressed, shampooed heads bowed for their grandfather's blessing.

There'll be a few special outings stored away in our memory banks: breakfast at the ocean, where we'll all watch the sunrise, just like the Smith family once did; a watermelon seed-spitting contest at our family reunion, like the ones Pamela Etter remembers; a clambake just like Nancy Kelleher's, complete with lobsters, sea water, and corn.

But if you're anything like me and my family, most of the meals you'll remember will be far less extraordinary than that, just random moments and fleeting images you'll replay again and again: The day your three-year-old made her first joke. That good talk you all had when the fish died. Your seven-year-old son's first attempt at beef stew.

Of course, you'll remember the birthdays: the look on your daughter's face when she sees the special cake you stayed up past midnight to bake, or the lump in your throat when you woke up to breakfast-and all three of your kids-in your bed. Those special Valentine cookies, the St. Patrick's Day dinner with green mashed potatoes, the Fourth of July sparklers in the blueberry pie. The hot fudge sundae party when your kid's soccer team won the championship. The neighborhood potluck on Halloween night.

And yet, it probably won't be the special occasions that will bring you the most joy of all. It will be the odd moments, the littlest things, that happen of their own accord. The spontaneous hug and kiss on a Wednesday. The unsolicited compliments on your Monday night roast. Your mother-in-law's request for the recipe for the crab dip you created yourself.

There'll be the cinnamon toast you'll share with your daughter on a blustery Monday when she's home with the flu. The candlelight dinner you'll share with your husband when your kids sleep at their grandparents' and your house seems too quiet. The Happy Meals you'll eat on a blanket in January in front of the fire while wearing your shorts.

As you sift through the moments, there'll be a handful of things that you'll find yourself able to track, like the steady improvement in your kids' table manners, or their progress at getting along. You'll remember your daughter's announcement (how could you not?) that from now on, she'll no longer eat meat. You'll recall the miraculous day your young vegetable phobic agrees to try "little trees" (a.k.a. broccoli) and decides-saints be praised!-that he likes them.

But there'll be no way to pinpoint which of those three hundred meals helped raise your kids' reading scores or improve their vocabularies. Nor will there be any way of knowing which ones taught them to take turns and be patient, or to eat wisely for long, healthy lives. At what breakfast did they finally acquire a strong enough sense of themselves to stand up to peer pressure? Over which dish of spaghetti and meatballs did they decide they trusted you enough to come to you for help with their problems?

And, for that matter, which of the countless plates of meatloaf kept you happily married while other people's marriages fell apart? Which Sunday dinner was it, exactly, when your mother and father transformed themselves into your friends? When you found yourself wishing your siblings lived closer, and that your grandparents could live forever?

Those are but a few of the questions you'll never be able to answer. But here's one I'm hoping you can: Isn't it worth the investment of effort and time to summon your family to the table?