InsightOut: Adding a Leaf to the Christmas Table

Catherine Mulroney (SMC 8T2, USMC 1T0) is the Interim Director of Communications at the University of St. Michael’s College. She would give anything for one last childhood Christmas.

There was always room for another guest at my parents’ Christmas table.

Our family dining room table, a treasure from my mother’s side, came with three leaves to extend its length as needed. As a small child, I knew Christmas was close when my parents would position themselves at either end of the table and pull, just like opening a Christmas cracker, making space for the leaves to be added as the table creaked and groaned.

Then my mother would survey the layout and other pieces of furniture would be recruited: a second table that was slightly shorter than the main one, which meant you really had to be careful about where you placed the serving dishes, and sometimes even the card table with the wonky leg, which added an exciting touch of unpredictability to the proceedings.

Next would come the debate over which tablecloths to use – the double damask ones or the Christmas cloth that Mom’s grandmother had cross-stitched decades earlier. If they were all pressed into service it was a sure thing that the Christmas turkey that year would be well over 20 pounds.

Over the years that table saw many guests, ranging from my father’s eccentric but always entertaining extended family and a lonely high school classmate of my mother’s who would more or less encamp for the holidays through to single people from our parish—St. Basil’s—and a gangly teenager from down the street who would appear for turkey after having had his first couple of servings at his own home.

We’d be a ragtag bunch wearing the tissue paper crowns from our Christmas crackers at jaunty angles, all of us ready to move over as more people arrived for dessert or a drink. For my dad, an only child, the bigger the crowd the better the Christmas.

Years later, when I first heard The Chieftains’ St. Stephen’s Day Murders I immediately bought my brothers copies and we all compared notes on the parts that most reminded us of our childhood.

That song, of course, came out long before Christmas dinner moved to my house, with my own children now the ones rolling their eyes at the goings-on. I felt less than ready to commit to such a big meal but it was time to give my parents a break. And when I complained to my mother that my gravy didn’t match hers, or that the stuffing wasn’t right, she would reassure me that the person who cooks Christmas dinner never actually tastes the meal, especially when the group is large and the dishes need refilling before the cook has even been served.

Soon, Mike and I found ourselves with our own additional guests – someone who’d had a falling out with family, for example, or friends of the kids who happened to swing by to say hello right at dinner time. The piano bench would be pressed into service for extra seating and we’d be set.

Now the one creating space in a much smaller dining room with a much smaller table, I developed a new appreciation for my parents’ Christmas energy and their sense of a practical commitment to their faith. They modelled by example, clearly mindful of all their blessings. They were never showy about adding the leaves to the table; they just did it.

In time, I was shown that an expandable guest list was a gift that goes both ways. The year my father died and I was feeling a tad orphaned, our dearest friends simply announced they would be joining us for Christmas and that was that. I am still grateful.

I’m writing this while polishing silver, deciding which Christmas tablecloth to use. My parents’ table is tucked away in my basement and yet again I am wondering when I’ll get around to having it stripped and refinished so that it matches my buffet – the same buffet that once held pride of place in my parents’ dining room.

I’m also wondering where the time has gone. My oldest son and I will be sharing cooking duties this year, with all four children, two daughters-in-law and three grandchildren in attendance.

In my heart I am still the little girl watching the table magically expand. When reality inevitably strikes, however, I remember I am very much a grown-up, missing the people I once shared Christmas dinner with, my dining room now filled with ghosts and memories.

Read other InsightOut posts.