I have often looked back on my life and thought about the many times we had spent together, at the small family table crammed into the tight kitchen corner. The many stories that must have been told over the many piping hot home cooked meals. Oh, how good it all would taste.
 

 
We must have pulled ourselves up all nice and snug at that table hundreds of times through the years, out there down the hill in the valley of that ol’ 20 acre farm.

Some of my most vivid and sweetest memories are those with us gathered round that small family table, crammed into the tight kitchen corner. I can remember so clearly, I normally sat in the very back, straight against the cabinets that sit right under the three window opening of the kitchen in that trailer home attached to the old settled farm house. Everyone else would pile in and eagerly await the feast that was to be served. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, collard greens, corn bread, biscuits, all homemade. Meatloaf, fried okra, fried green tomatoes (my grandpa’s favorite of course)

On special occasions my grandma would make banana pudding, carrot cake, mandarin orange cake or pineapple upside down cake oh my! The food and the treats served upon that small family table in the tight corner of that little country kitchen never disappointed. Of course, food of any kind never disappoints me. But life wasn’t always easy out there, we definitely had our share of hardships from time to time and we still do now and again. Life is always that way. But if there’s one thing that, that small family table taught me, it’s that, it’s the little things that make the biggest impact.
 

It’s The Little Things –

 
One of my most memorable Thanksgiving dinners, did not include the finest table cloth or the fanciest of platters. It did not entail the grandest juiciest turkey or finely gold plated utensils. However, the highlight of the meal was, the canned cranberry sauce and the 99 cent frozen turkey and gravy dinners that were on sale at the market a few weeks prior to the holiday feast (which by the way, just so happened to be one of my favorite TV dinners) Though, if I’m really being honest. What stood out to me the most that year, was not really the food, or the glass we drink out of or how elegant our table set was at all.

What had the most impact on me that year was that, even though it had been a rough couple months before and more rough times were ahead of us, we were there, together in the moment. It was real, we laughed. We talked, we made homemade thanksgiving greeting cards drawn out by hand, by literally tracing our hands on a piece of paper and cutting it out and making it into a little turkey with the phrase “Happy Thanksgiving” written on it. We called up our friends and loved ones and gobbled their ears off like madmen.

We watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade and couldn’t wait to see snoopy come around the block. We didn’t have much, but in those days we most certainly had more than we could have ever hoped for.
 

Hold Onto What Is Left –

 
How I had longed to have the big dining room table, the fancy table spread and the ability to completely walk around the table without being backed into a corner. Now, how I wish for us to be huddled around that table again just one more time, together. The Holiday Thanksgiving has passed and it’s Christmas once again. The holidays are often hard for many, especially for those who lost loved ones, whether it’s during the holidays, other parts of the year, a few months ago, or a few years ago. It will always be difficult. It will never be the same. Yet we try and make the best of it. We brave a smile, and we look up to the heavens with love in our hearts, thinking of them.
 
Oh, we see you, we remember and we love you.
 

In Conclusion:

 
So as I raise my virtual glass to sign off this time I say;
 
‘Here’s to you and your family and here’s to a delicious Christmas meal, and hopefully one that’s gathered around that small family table, crammed into the tight corner of a little country kitchen.’
 

SHALOM –