Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
In this heartfelt and helpful book, Doris Christopher shows families how to honor and celebrate one of our most beloved traditions: togetherness around the dinner table. An American entrepreneur and enterprising mom, Christopher serves us a blend of inspiration and practical advice, revealing how she and others have used this humble surface as a way to strengthen family life.
As Doris Christopher shares tips on how to make ordinary dinners special, how to encourage even teenagers to join the family gathering, and how helping to prepare meals can boost a child's self-esteem, she also shares remembrances of her family table — stories that will surely revive readers' own memories.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780446676236 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Grand Central Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2000 |
| Series: | Traditions Series |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Celebrations
Like most people my age, I have a hard time remembering what it was like to be six. I have an equally tough time recalling how it felt to be four, or eleven, for that matter. But ask me what it was like to turn six, and it's a whole other story. On the topic of my sixth birthday, I can go on at great length.
I can tell you, for example, that on June 2, 1951, at my request, I had calf liver for dinner. And, much to their dismay, so did my two older sisters, having failed to talk me into asking my mother to make something—anything—else. Since I wouldn't eat a piece of liver today to save my life, I suspect I chose it precisely because my big sisters opposed it so violently. When you're the baby of the family, moments of power are rare. They're also addictive: I requested the same exact menu for the next three birthdays in a row.
We still laugh about my "liver years," my sisters and I, but in retrospect I think those dinners speak volumes about what it was like growing up as the junior member of the Ted Kelley family in Oak Lawn, Illinois, during the postwar years.
Birthday memories are like that. They're shorthand, in a way, for a bit of our personal history, a blast from our own distant past. A faded snapshot is all that's required to send us hurtling back through the decades. To this day, I can look at a picture of my family taken long ago and re-create my place in the universe as a child. It may have been at the bottom of the pecking order, but it was a wonderful place just the same. It was there that I learned all I needed to know about security, love, andbelonging. It was there that I learned who I was.
The universe of my childhood no longer exists. But bits and pieces of that lost world remain with me: the meat grinder I inherited from my mother; my Aunt Anna's recipe for baked beans; the sense of well-being that still warms my heart at the sight of my family gathered around the table.
And when I close my eyes and let my mind wander into the past, I can picture us still, drifting one at a time on a cold winter evening into my mother's kitchen, five separate souls merging into one family, in a timeless celebration of what it means to belong. Back in my "liver years," of course, family meals weren't endangered. They were simply what families did. Whatever else our lives brought, here was something to count on, something to anchor the day. These celebrations of kinship and closeness always started with blessings and ended with sweets. Casual interruptions like phone calls weren't acceptable, either, although the phone seldom rang. When it did, my family would be startled, bewildered. Now who could that be, at this hour? It was suppertime, after all.
For the most part, the suppers of my growing-up years were fairly routine. We took our seats at the table between five and five-thirty and shared the events of the day over practical, easy meals that were hearty and economical, if a bit unexotic. Mind you, nobody ever complained; our daily bread was satisfying and tasty. But on birthdays and other special occasions, we would take a welcome break from our routine. On those evenings, "supper" became "dinner," a fancier-than-usual meal made all the more festive by the addition of a guest or two, along with a tablecloth and maybe even some hors d'oeuvres beforehand. The mere act of eating these tidbits in the living room, a place where food and drink normally were forbidden, heightened our anticipation, setting the tone for the dinner to follow. Our conversation was more animated and our laughter more frequent. We ate later than usual and we lingered a bit longer. Tomorrow, we all knew, we'd be eating Swiss steak off our everyday Melmac. But now, over roast beef and pie, we were happy to bask in the glow.
Those were among the memories I grew up with, of good times I hoped to re-create with my own children, who were born during the seventies, when shared meal times were still a fixture of American life. But during the eighties, as women, including myself, entered the workforce in record numbers and children's schedules became busier, things began to change. As a result, the family dinner hour seemed to be going the way of unlocked doors and bacon-and-egg breakfasts.
Nowadays, getting everyone to the table at the same time is easier said than done, especially when one child's soccer practice follows another's violin lesson, to say nothing of the nightly challenge of feeding a family made up of one vegetarian, one dieter, and a carnivorous teenager or two. And how do we cope when our schedules are at odds with our appetites—when the kids want to eat at five-thirty, but Dad won't be home until eight? What about the nights we're delayed at the office, and our good intentions all go up in smoke?
It is possible to reconcile today's hectic pace with our need to celebrate and connect with our families. What most of us need is a starting point, some means of taking that first, wobbly step toward the fridge and that vaguely familiar appliance, the stove. Let go of unrealistic expectations and impossible standards, and the side dish of guilt that goes with them. Times have changed; things are different. About the only things that haven't changed are our need to celebrate and to spend time with our families. And while it may no longer be realistic to expect the whole clan to march into the kitchen at five-thirty sharp every night, that isn't to say we can't get it together three nights a week, or even one. Don't view this tradition as a chore, but rather a celebration.
You can make the times you do come to the table as a family memorable. A few festive touches added to your family's meals can go a long way toward boosting everybody's enthusiasm. Along with improving your odds of getting things off to a good start, you'll also create some new ways to celebrate in the process. After all, when you stop and think about it, most families have a great deal to celebrate not only birthdays, but weddings and anniversaries, new babies and new jobs, good report cards and graduations, promotions and winning sports teams. Celebrations are a great time to bring the family together. And, a good time to begin a few new family traditions.
When Sammy Werner's T-ball team won its championship, his mother, Claire, used simple food coloring to turn her family's supper into a tribute. The Werners ate orange mashed potatoes washed down with blue milk, in honor of Sammy's team colors. "Food coloring is fun, inexpensive, and easy," says Claire. "And it adds interest to foods kids won't otherwise eat. It amazed me how fast that blue milk disappeared!" These days, eight-year-old Sammy and his five year-old sister, Ellie, never know what rainbow shades they might find on their plates. Claire added purple coloring to the vanilla cake mix for Ellie's Barney birthday cake. And green pancakes have become a weekend staple at the Werners' house.
As the Werners' story shows, kids love the little things that turn "ordinary" into "special." There are as many of these as there are families, and they needn't be costly or elaborate. The happy truth is, it takes surprisingly little to elevate a humdrum meal into a festive one. Chocolate milk in a wineglass. Ice cream sundaes for dessert. A special plate to mark special occasions. Celebratory traditions can be as easy as swapping seats, thereby giving the all-A student or Most Valuable Player a spot of honor at the head of the table. Families with round tables can accomplish much the same thing by serving their MVP first.
In the Christopher household years ago, celebration dinners were officially designated by the use of the colorful place cards my daughters made. We still use them for special occasions, even when it's only the four of us. My husband, Jay, has one decorated with a drawing of a necktie, and Kelley has one with a beer mug, a humorous nod to her college days. Julie, the shopper of the family, has an American Express card on hers. Mine has a house—our house bright and welcoming, beneath a blue sky with white, puffy clouds. More than silver platters or crystal goblets, these little cards make us happy. They remind us that no one knows us better or loves us more than each other.
The special dinners I made for my daughters' birthdays further reflected their personalities. Over the years, I've cooked everything from chicken fajitas to shish kebab to satisfy the adventurous tastes of Kelley, my younger daughter. But for Julie, a hamburger lover, nothing but burgers would do. One year, in hopes of making memories along with dessert, I carried this theme all the way through to her birthday cake: a dead ringer for a giant Big Mac, with green-tinted icing for lettuce, chocolate icing for the burgers, peanut butter icing for the bun, and peanuts sprinkled on top just like sesame seeds!
Unusual birthday cakes have been a Christopher tradition ever since. The year Kelley turned five, I baked fancy individual cakes for a celebration that combined elements of dress-up with an old-fashioned tea party. Kelley and her guests sipped tea and ate their cakes while wearing their moms' Sunday best, complete with high heels and hats. On other birthdays, I remember pink-and-white checkerboard confections and Winnie the Pooh cakes, but every now and then, nostalgia triumphed over invention, and I opted instead for the rich chocolate layer cake with white icing my mother always made for my birthdays. I hoped my daughters' birthday memories would live on the way mine have, and that one day, they'd look back on their own "liver years."
As the familiar, rich scent of my children's cakes filled the air, transporting me back to my youth, I lingered awhile in the kitchen reliving those celebratory dining room dinners, mesmerized once again by their spell. Long after the birthday candles had been blown out and the wishes had come true (or not), our family memories of those dinners would continue to warm us, making us feel special and loved.
The fact that we'd had fun in the process made our bond that much stronger. And one of the main reasons my celebratory dinners loom so large in my memory is simply because they were fun. An underrated commodity in today's busy world, family fun often falls by the way side, but its worth shouldn't be lost in mundane details of everyday life like household bills, disappointing report cards, and longer-than-usual work hours. Families that set aside time to have fun together are closer and happier as a result, a lesson brought home to me not just by my own parents, but also by my husband's, who believed it should be a priority all year long, but on birthdays in particular.
My in-laws, Maxine and Walter Christopher, always celebrated Walter's birthday by throwing a dinner party. Like the guest of honor, a sociable man who loved gag gifts and jokes, these parties were always great fun. The year Julie was born, we decided to turn Walter's annual party into a practical joke. The perfect vehicle for doing this was something we called a Mystery Dinner.
On the eve of Walter's birthday, the dinner guests were seated at a table set with nothing more than a centerpiece: no dishes, no flatware, no food. The puzzled guests were handed menus listing twenty items to be served in four courses. For each course, guests had to choose five items apiece. That may sound simple, but wait: every item, from flatware to apple pie, had been given a code name. To receive a spoon, for example, a guest had to order a "Fisherman's Friend," unlikely unless he or she happened to know that a "spoon" is also a type of fishing lure. "Barbells" were celery sticks with black olives stuck on either end. A "devil's tool" was a fork.
You can probably guess the result. Some guests got plenty of food but nothing to eat it with. Others got apple pie a la mode and a celery stick as their first course, followed by barbecued ribs and a spoon. It was a hilarious evening, filled with all manner of mismatches as Jay and I raced back and forth from the kitchen to the table, delivering one curious course after another. Small wonder I went into labor the next day! My in-laws insisted it was my hard work that night that brought Julie forth the next morning, on May twenty-first, Walter's birthday, and they're probably right. Either way, along with the family's first grandchild, a brand-new tradition was born. We've since given a number of Mystery Dinners for family members celebrating birthdays at both ends of the age spectrum, each as memorable as the first.
Nothing beats a birthday celebration, my family agrees, with the possible exception of two celebrations. In the case of the Graft family, it's more like a celebration and a half. "Chris and I started celebrating our children's 'half birthdays' when they were little," Nancy Graff says, "but the ritual proved so popular, we've kept right on doing it, even though Garrett's now a junior in high school and Lindsay is in seventh grade." Her kids' half-birthdays, celebrated six months to the day after their actual birthdays, consist of special dinners of their choosing, and they differ from their true birthdays in several important ways. Instead of a whole cake, Nancy serves half a cake, with half the usual number of candles on top. There's just one present, costing no more than twenty dollars. And the guest list is limited to Garrett, Lindsay, Nancy, and Chris. "Real birthdays involve other people, but on half-birthdays, the focus is just on the family," explains Nancy. "And half-birthdays aren't really about presents. They're more about being almost ready to drive, or being almost a teenager."
Those of us who've celebrated dozens of birthdays tend to forget how significant turning a year older can be to a child—especially for the baby of the family. Each birthday brings some exciting new "privilege," from starting school to paying the "adult" price at the movies, and all deserve recognition at family celebrations. Indeed, some birthdays deserve extra-special treatment, since they imply a rite of passage that's particularly noteworthy. For Kelley's Sweet Sixteen, for example, we had a cake that resembled a driver's license. When Alison Caplain turned thirteen, her mother, Marcy, planned a special women-only celebration, followed by a hairstyling session and a department store makeover.
Regardless of age or motif, most younger kids' birthdays can be easily put together by one or two adults using standard components: other kids, a fun activity, ice cream and cake, along with presents, paper plates, and plenty of napkins. But as we get older, the formula changes as our focus shifts from presents to people. And for the people who love us, that can lead to a different sort of celebration— the kind that comes from the heart, as opposed to the shopping mall.
Lynn Jonas used to buy her grandmother, Sarah, jewelry or clothes for her birthday. But now she buys groceries instead. The special birthday dinners she cooks for her grandmother every June are made all the more meaningful by the distance Lynn travels to make them—nearly two hundred miles each way, from her home in southern Connecticut to her grandmother's in central New Hampshire. The food is secondary to the ritual, which is all about spending time together. And for Lynn, there's no better place to celebrate than in her grandmother's old-fashioned kitchen. "Every item on the table brings back memories: the salt and pepper shakers, the sugar bowl, the coffee creamer. In fact, my grandmother still keeps them all on the same orange paint-by-numbers tray I made for her when I was seven!"
In my experience, that isn't unusual. Heirlooms are important to families, and they often play a significant role in celebrations. A great-aunt's hand-embroidered tablecloth or the Waterford candlesticks that passed through Ellis Island in Grandmother's steamer trunk speak to us of continuity and stability, heritage and love. But even the simplest objects—like my family's handmade paper place cards—can take on mythic proportions when they embody a sentiment that comes from the heart. I know of one family that uses an old patchwork quilt as a tablecloth on special occasions, to celebrate their Appalachian roots. Another covers their table with an ordinary white sheet that turns into a giant birthday greeting card once it's been signed by their guests after dinner. Couples can adapt this tradition for anniversary celebrations by writing each other notes on the tablecloth year after year, thereby turning a sheet into a gigantic love letter, a record of their life together.
A special plate on the table—either a family treasure or a purchased "celebration plate"—is yet another method for transforming a routine dinner into a celebratory one, as Donna Linthicum found out a decade ago. It was a bright turquoise plate, with little yellow ducklings encircling a white rim, the sole survivor of Donna's three piece set of baby dishes. The set had been a gift from her mother when Donna was three, the same age as her younger son, Adam. Over the years the plate had been forgotten, but when Donna's mother found it packed away in a closet, she returned it to Donna, who was quite unprepared for the sensation it caused. Both Adam and his six-year-old brother, Matthew, immediately confronted her, demanding to know who got to use the duck plate. "Nobody. It's for special times," Donna told them, putting the plate out of harm's way in her china cupboard, where it could be admired from a safe distance.
She thought that would be the end of it, but in fact, it was just the beginning. Whenever one of the boys did something noteworthy, his first question would be: Do I get the duck plate for this? Accordingly, the plate began making sporadic appearances on the Linthicums' table, and a little ceremony evolved to go with it. On duck plate nights, Donna summons her family to a table that's already set. "We see that someone has the duck plate tonight," she announces. No one may begin eating until after the recipient has described his accomplishment and accepted his praise. "It's so funny," Donna says. "The boys are thirteen and ten now, and whenever one of them accomplishes something, his first question is still, 'Is this duck plate-worthy?"' She's careful not to overdo it, lest the old plate lose its luster. But used judiciously, the ritual of the duck plate sends a powerful message to her kids: their parents are proud of them.
Like Matthew and Adam, most children derive a great sense of security from the rituals and traditions that accompany celebrations. Among the other, more obvious benefits, a tradition is a hedge against disappointment, for children and adults alike. When we know exactly what's coming, we can anticipate it with pleasure, free from the burden of our own expectations. In my family, anything done twice is considered tradition. More often than not, proposed changes are met with resistance, along with a chorus of that age-old refrain "But we always do it that way!"
And part of me understands these expectations perfectly, since I still trace my own sense of well-being to the rituals and anticipations of my youth. Even now, more than forty years later, I find it impossible to bring out the good china without thinking back to those special celebration dinners my mother made when I was a girl. Amy Chan wouldn't dream of celebrating the anniversary of her American citizenship without the backyard barbecue she and her daughters have looked forward to every August for twenty-five years. Like the buttery shortbread the Phillipses bake during blizzards, or the French toast the Carrolls have for Saturday breakfasts, these kinds of traditions help define families. Each time we honor them, we celebrate who we are.
And each time we honor our children's accomplishments, we help set the stage for them to flourish as successful adults. Perhaps that's why some of the sweetest celebrations of all are the ones that recognize our kids' achievements, like the ice cream sundae parties Jay and I always had for our girls after their music recitals. There's something especially gratifying about rewards that were earned through hard work. No layer cake ever tastes quite as wonderful as the one that follows a triumphant school play. No corn ever quite measures up to that first ear eaten after the front teeth come in, or the braces come off. That first real dive (as opposed to a jump) off the high board . . . the first book report given before the whole class . . . the first grand slam home run in Babe Ruth League. All are deserving of a family's applause and approval. All are duck plate-worthy.
In conveying our pride and approval through these token gestures, we encourage a closeness of family. We also instill values in our children. These values may even find their way back to us in wonderfully unexpected ways, since affection breeds affection, and generous parents rear generous children. That lesson was brought home to Claire and Gerry Werner on their anniversary a few years ago. Their son, Sammy, was just five at the time, too young to stay home alone but old enough to recognize his mom's disappointment when the babysitter canceled at the last minute. Dinner was just about ready that night when Sammy appeared in the kitchen sporting a white towel over the arm of his Sunday school blazer. He got so caught up in his role as a self-styled waiter that he even wrote up a bill, payable in hugs and kisses and presented with a flourish at the end of the meal. As they settled the "check," it occurred to the Werners that the spirit in which they were raising their son was beginning to rub off on him.
They now make it a point to stay home on their anniversaries, as do Roger and Evelyn Gray, whose daughters, Chloe and Katie, are seven and twelve. "While we enjoy going out as a couple, this is one night we share with our girls," Evelyn says. For years, the Grays have celebrated their anniversary by re-creating their first married meal, from the Italian wedding soup appetizer to the green apple wedding cake they had for dessert. "We look at the pictures and listen to the music we played during our reception fifteen years ago. After dinner, the four of us dance together. We then go outside and pelt each other with rice. Finally, we all go to sleep with what's left of the cake under our pillows." It's an evening of romance for all four Grays, and one they look forward to year after year.
Like birthdays and baseball playoffs, however, anniversaries come but once a year, whereas dinnertime rolls around nightly. And in the absence of special occasions, romance tends to make itself scarce when the average family sits down to dinner. Alas, cranky kids, tired parents, and overcooked broccoli do not a celebration make, and many a fantasy of the ideal family feast has given way to the reality of dinner-as-ordeal. We've all been there and we'll undoubtedly go there again—because ultimately, there's nothing inherently magical about the table. It's up to us to transform it into our family's sacred place, where petty arguments and minor grievances are set aside in favor of higher pursuits: Appreciation. Spirituality. Joy. A place we visit in gratitude, not just for the food, but for the lives it sustains; where, for a few moments each day or even each week, we practice seeing past the little things that don't matter to the big things that do.
There is no better lesson to impart to our children than the simple act that gives meaning to life, for therein lies the purest form of celebration. It's up to each of us to decide how to teach this, but a table blessing is a good place to start. Expressing our gratitude for all that we have is a wonderful habit to get into, because the better we get at seeing the good things, the more we are able to see. And the better we get at transforming our tables into all that we want them to be.
In the process, we find, something magical happens. Life's background noises and daily distractions fade into the background. Over roast beef or spaghetti, we listen and learn, cope and compromise, remedy and resolve. And we celebrate, with blue milk and green pancakes, handmade place cards and cakes cut in half. We giggle and argue and pass the potatoes. We dance to life's music, and we come away humming the tune.
It is with that melody in my heart that I wish you a lifetime of celebrations, happy birthdays and half-birthdays, too.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | 1 | |
| Celebrations | 13 | |
| Sundays | 33 | |
| Teenagers and the Table | 51 | |
| Winter Comforts | 69 | |
| Communities, Neighbors, and Friends | 85 | |
| Holidays | 101 | |
| The Children's Hour | 117 | |
| Summer Pleasures | 133 | |
| Family Reunions | 149 | |
| Reaching Out | 171 | |
| Epilogue | 189 |