Melanie Heuiser Hill ampersand

author

Melanie Heuiser Hill

Melanie Heuiser Hill ampersand

author

Melanie Heuiser Hill

Gran’s Dining Room Table

 

My moth­er was one of sev­en sis­ters and my grand­moth­er (Gran) had 20 grand­chil­dren. Hav­ing a Christ­mas gath­er­ing for all those rel­a­tives was a week’s long under­tak­ing but one Gran accom­plished every year well into her 70’s. At the cen­ter of this gath­er­ing was a large, 54–60 inch wide, mul­ti-leaved oak table, like­ly dat­ing back to the late 1800’s or ear­ly 1900’s.

Nor­mal­ly this table sat in the din­ing room with its many chairs ready for a large sup­per, but on Christ­mas Day it was pushed against the out­side wall of the spa­cious din­ing room to allow free flow around it, ready to be laden with taste treats of all vari­eties. Many brought dish­es to add to the boun­ty, all home­made by some very fine cooks. Every­one, espe­cial­ly the aunts but lat­er some of the cousins, had their specialty.

At one end was a large stack of fine Chi­na plates to fill and the plat­ters of turkey to start with. As each per­son oohed and aahed their way around the table, there were mashed pota­toes and giblet gravy, sweet pota­toes with marsh­mal­lows on top, dress­ing (cooked inside the turkey(s) and very tasty), green beans, corn pud­ding, scal­loped oys­ters and more. The fruit sal­ads were a cel­e­bra­to­ry sweet treat. One had fresh fruits—apples, bananas, grapes—and the oth­er had Roy­al Anne cher­ries and pineap­ple. There was always a rel­ish tray with crunchy fresh veg­gies, tangy pick­les and ripe olives and its own spe­cial­ty rel­ish fork. At the end were pans of home­made rolls—soft and yeasty, just wait­ing for a pat of but­ter. A table full of boun­ty for a true hol­i­day feast. If you lis­tened hard, you might have heard creaks, almost groans, as the table was heav­i­ly laden with favorite foods.

As Gran over­saw the replen­ish­ing of the main course items, she also began to put the desserts, hereto­fore grac­ing the kitchen table, on the oak din­ing room table. There were pies of all varieties—pumpkins, pecan, choco­late and banana cream to name a few, and Christ­mas cook­ies in great num­ber from everyone’s house. But my favorite was always Gran’s last minute choco­late cake—light and airy, choco­laty and iced with the thinnest lay­er of the tasti­est choco­late frost­ing good­ness a child could ever wish for. She always thought she wouldn’t have time for this mun­dane treat, but some­how she always did.

As every­one savored their last bites and was sat­ed, adults sat to vis­it, kids ran play­ing in the house and babies became sleepy, the table got lighter—only an occa­sion­al cook­ie snatch­er vis­it­ing. Crumbs had been swept off, the table­cloth straight­ened, the Christ­mas poin­set­tia was in the cen­ter now that there was room—the table had served this large, gre­gar­i­ous some­times ram­bunc­tious bunch well through anoth­er Christ­mas hol­i­day. Gran was smil­ing and, if you lis­tened hard, you might have heard almost a faint sigh as one of the kids brushed hur­ried­ly past that stur­dy cen­ter­piece of the fam­i­ly celebration.

Susan Heuis­er lives and cooks and bakes and writes in north­west Wisconsin. 

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