Ready. Set. Done

It’s Boxing Day – the refrigerator is burping the fragrance of cold turkey and cooked Brussels sprouts every time I open its door, the recycling bin is full to overflowing with festive paper and superfluous packaging and I’m eating the last of the Christmas trifle for breakfast. Christmas is done like dinner. And for me, Christmas is all about the dinner.

I inherited Christmas Dinner from my mom when my grandmother passed away – we all decided it might be easier to create a new tradition than it would be to look at her empty chair at mom’s table that year. We were only planning to host it for a year or two, until the sting of loss subsided. That was thirty years ago.

Christmas dinner is a living thing at our house. The table grows or shrinks each year like a giant creature catching its breath. The size of the crowd around the table changes, it ages and evolves as the years go by. When we inherited the dinner there were quite a few grey haired people seated and entertained by the young ones around the table. There still are, but the entertainers have become the grey haired and the original entertaining children have grown up. A new generation of clowns is appearing at the table, entertainers bent on stealing the show.

Christmas Dinner is the focal point of the holidays at our house. Ever since we cooked that original turkey, thirty years ago, our Christmas Day has revolved around the bird in the oven. When our kids were young, and the stockings that were hung by the chimney had been emptied, we would begin our trek toward the dinner right after breakfast.

It was a bit of a gong show in the early years. Mountains of wrapping paper and ribbons had to be excavated out of the living room to make room for the expanded table that was about to emerge from the garage. Our dining room table, which can seat twelve people on any given day, needs to accommodate up to 24 for the Christmas dinner. We add a leaf, or two, made out of plywood and two by twos to the table to seat the crowd. The leaves are rough and collect dust and cobwebs for 363 days in anticipation of the dinner. They are heavy and require at least two people to install.

Once the leaves are in place the work to set the table begins. This is the fun stuff, my favorite chore of the season. The table cloths. The dishes, glasses and cutlery. The evolving centerpiece. The chairs. By the time everything is in place I feel like we have recreated the dining room of Buckingham Palace.

I used to get up two hours after Santa vamoosed, with his eight tiny reindeer, to start preparing the dinner. I’d be peeling potatoes while visions of sugar plums were still dancing in everyone else’s heads. They would wake up to the aroma of a turkey in the oven and the abundance of Christmas exploding in the living room.

The Santa circus has migrated in recent years. If we want to partake in the excitement of stockings and wishes coming true, my husband and I have to get up at the crack of dawn and steer our sleigh in the direction of our granddaughters. It’s an exciting morning but it throws a screw in the works for dinner preparation.

We have created a new tradition to accommodate this new agenda — we now have turkey cooking day a few days prior to the official circus. Our new strategy makes for a very civilized Christmas Day. No one is stuck in the kitchen mashing potatoes or stirring gravy while everyone else partakes in festive fun. There is a small flurry of activity by the oven and a finely choreographed dance with serving bowls just prior to the feast, but it is a far cry from the chaos of the days of yore.

Christmas Dinner holds a special place in my heart. The view of the table from my seat at the end is spectacular. I feel like the mother of the Whos looking at the true meaning of Christmas as I study the faces of everyone gathered together. I’m thankful I inherited our Christmas Dinner.

It’s Boxing Day and I’m pooped – but leftover trifle is delicious and I am savoring the flavor of another memorable Christmas Dinner.  Which is, again, one of the best gifts of Christmas.