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A Family Celebration
Every year, my family tried to make Thanksgiving dinner simple. Every year, that plan disappeared as
soon as someone brought another dish, another folding chair, or another story from the past. Last
Thanksgiving, though, we planned to keep things especially small because my grandmother had
recently come home after spending several days in the hospital. I expected a quiet evening. Instead,
the celebration became one of the most memorable family gatherings I have experienced.
By early afternoon, the kitchen was already warm from the oven. My mother was preparing the
vegetables, my father was carrying extra chairs in from the garage, and my younger cousins were
arguing over a board game in the living room. My grandmother sat near the window with a cup of tea.
She looked tired, but she smiled whenever someone stopped to talk with her. Because she was still
recovering, everyone agreed that we would not keep her up too late.
I was given the job of setting the table. I wanted everything to look perfect, so I searched the cabinets
for matching plates and glasses. We did not have enough of either. I finally put together whatever I
could find: two large plates, several smaller ones, and glasses that looked as if they had come from
completely different sets. My father looked at the table and laughed. 'That looks like us,' he said. I knew
exactly what he meant. Our family had never been very good at matching things.
Around five o'clock, the doorbell started ringing. Relatives arrived carrying food, desserts, and jackets
they immediately dropped over the backs of chairs. The house grew louder with every arrival. My aunt
brought an old photo album, and before dinner was ready, several of us were sitting around the coffee
table turning pages. We laughed at pictures of my cousins with bad haircuts and at photographs of
family members who had been younger than I remembered.
My grandmother stopped at one picture and laughed so hard that she had to put her tea down. It was a
photograph of her standing in a kitchen many years earlier, wearing an apron and holding a huge
mixing bowl. 'I thought I looked terrible that day,' she said. My mother shook her head and told her she
looked exactly the same. Everyone disagreed with the last part and started joking about how much had
changed. For a few minutes, nobody talked about hospitals, work, school, or anything else that had
been worrying us.
Dinner itself was less graceful. While carrying a serving dish to the table, I lost my grip. The dish hit the
floor and broke. I froze and stared at the pieces. I had been trying so hard to make the evening go well
that I felt terrible for ruining something. My father immediately grabbed a towel and said, 'It is a dish,
not the end of Thanksgiving.' My aunt laughed and told us about the time she had dropped an entire
pie. Soon everyone was adding their own stories, and my embarrassment disappeared.
After dinner, we stayed at the table longer than planned. My cousins cleared the plates while the adults
kept talking. Then one of my younger cousins asked my grandmother to teach her a simple dance she
had learned at school. My grandmother stood carefully, took her hand, and followed the steps. The rest
of us clapped along. She missed several of the moves, and my cousin missed even more, but neither
of them cared. They kept trying until everyone in the room was laughing.
