"Sharing a meal with people you love is timeless and one of life's most fulfilling pleasures." -- Art Smith
I don't think there is anything more loving you can do than prepare and share a meal for family and friends. I love planning the menu, finding the perfect recipes, shopping for the freshest food, cooking, setting the table and welcoming my family and friends to the table.
The above table is the first table I purchased when I moved into my first unfurnished apartment. The little "ice cream" set was priced at $99.00. I couldn't really afford it, but I chatted a little, smiled a lot, and in the way only a 21 year old would dare, I explain I only had $250 to furnish my little apartment. He gave it to me for $50. It was the table Roger and I used for a short time after we married almost 31 years ago. If we had family or friends for a meal, we would remove the glass top, wire a piece of plywood to the base and cover it with my Grandmother's tablecloth. No one was the wiser. We gave away the matching chairs long ago, but the table has accompanied us across the country a couple of times. It is now outside and will be the perfect place for afternoon tea with a friend or a quiet evening cocktail.
We've changed tables several times since we camouflaged that little yellow table.
Each served us well as a dining table, and
has long been reassigned.
As I walked around taking pictures of the tables we have used, or are still using, my heart flooded with memories of the faces of family and friends who have gathered to eat, tell stories, make plans, laugh and pray together. We have celebrated holidays, birthdays, graduations and weddings around these tables. More important than the table we sat around, or the special occasions we marked, is that we made time, no matter our schedules, each evening to sit down, over a meal, as a family and celebrated just being together.
Nothing makes me more joyful than to prepare dinner and linger around the table with those I love.
Time passes swiftly...
The dishes can wait...
Sit with me at the table a little longer.
I love to prepare the meal and set the table too but it's the time that we linger after the food is cleared away that I love. The best times are when we sit and talk so long that we have to bring the food back out for round two that are the best!
ReplyDeleteI am using my parents dining room table that they got when I was little - a table for their very first home. There's 42 years worth of stories and memories...although I want to paint it, I could never part with it.
I loved your story of your table, and love that you still have it. I think I can remember all the tables I've had and especially the one my parents used for dinner for us while growing up. It had a fake wood veneer and plastic orange chairs which I'm sure were stylish in the 60's when they first bought it. We used it til the legs started falling off. It's pretty neat to think back to all the special events that take place around a dining table.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing as special or as sentimental as a family dining table. Lovely post!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely post. The best part of any day, week, or month is having a meal with my family. Very nice tables too!!
ReplyDeleteOh, Bonnie, table love, my kind of post! Aren't tables wonderful, they come in all shapes and sizes and fill so many uses. What you said here is what it is all about, family and friends around the table, sharing stories..happy or sad...all staying connected around a table.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Jeanne xx
Bonnie,
ReplyDeleteBy all means, let the dishes wait because I want another helping of dessert.
xo, Rosemary
Thank you all for sharing your "table tales" and comments. It is comforting to know I am not the only one who develops sentimental attachments. Hugs!
ReplyDeleteRosemary, just tell me your favorite dessert. I will have it waiting.
When one thinks about it, the table is the gathering place of family, friends, neighbors. Where we listen and support one another. Probably not a truer symbol of love anywhere in our house.
ReplyDeleteBrenda
Oh Bonnie! I love this post and the fact that you shared your table history with us. So sweet and great tables. It's funny that just yesterday as I was fixing dinner I was contemplating how a lovingly prepared dinner for family and friends vertually screams, "I love you". I'm so with you on this!
ReplyDelete