Growing up, dinner hour around my house was a sacred time. My mom worked hard at preparing a healthy, delicious and filling meal for her family of 5 kids. Everyone helped set the table and we all waited anxiously to hear mom say…. “Dinner’s Ready!”
Do you ever notice that most people congregate in the kitchen?
Is it the food? Sometimes, yes.
Is it the smells? Maybe.
Or is it just the fact that the kitchen table holds more power than we know? Absolutely.
So many of my favorite memories as a child take place around a kitchen table. Sitting at my Nana’s kitchen table I can remember her wearing an apron, standing at the stove, frying cubed steak. The smells, the laughter and the promise of dessert once I joined the “Clean Plate Club” make me feel like a little girl again, wanting a seat at their table.
To this day at my mom’s house, the kitchen is the place where people gather. Just ask my mom when she is trying to prepare dinner. I remember countless times, growing up, when she had to say “everyone OUT OF THE KITCHEN!”
This past month our family was blessed with a new kitchen table. Going through the motions of packing up our old table and getting the kitchen ready for our new table brought up old memories. Our now “old” 4 chair table was a totally stylish table that I had to have when we were first married. Well, my tastes have changed… my family has grown and the table is now off to live it’s second life in my a college apartment.
Our old table is gone…
I say that we are blessed to have our new table because it was a well loved kitchen table. I know the table was well loved because before buying the table, the previous owner made sure to tell me that she raised all four of her girls around that table. How it holds precious memories of family dinners and she felt God had a hand in us buying their table because she knew that it was going to a good home. She was attached to her kitchen table, her family was attached to the kitchen table. It is now living it’s second life, starting all over again with our young family of 3 girls.
Now our family is building memories of our own around our kitchen table. As we raise 3 young girls the table is being used for play-dough, coloring, arts/crafts, school time, meal time, game time, family talk time and so much more. I place an importance on eating at the kitchen table because of the memories I had growing up around my kitchen table. Eating dinner together provided times to talk ,times to laugh, times to cry, and times to just get to know each other better.
What is your kitchen table saying? Is it empty or full of memories for your little ones to pass on for generations to come?
Don’t neglect the power of your families’ kitchen table.
It feeds the heart, mind and body.
Great post Sarah! We were having a family over for dinner about a year ago, and there was not going to be enough room at the table for everyone, and my husband acted like it was no big deal because some people could just eat in the living room with a plate on their lap. Through my conversation with him I came to this conclusion: It’s important to me that EVERYONE fit around the table because it says “you belong here, in this group, and we want you with us.” The thought of picking who “gets” to sit on the couch just didn’t feel right. To me, the dinner table says, “you will always belong here, even if you don’t feel like you belong in other places in life…there’s always room for you at this table.”
When we got married my grandma gave me the oak kitchen table and chairs they had bought in the 60s (shortly after I got married and moved out of my parents’ house she moved in since she was well into her 80s by then), the same table my mom and aunts/uncle used for most of their lives. Everyone in the family equated it with Sunday family dinners, grandkids remembered making homemade bagel chips on it and drawing masterpieces for the refrigerator door while seated there. I still remember decorating the cupcakes to share at school for my birthday back in 2nd grade at that table and always requesting that my godmother would sit next to me at family dinners. I was honored that grandma chose to give the table to us as we started our life together 5 years ago, and now I’m excited for that same table to become part of my kids’ childhood. It’s funny how a piece of furniture can really have a “life” of it’s own.
I just found your blog. I really enjoyed reading it.
Please keep posting.