what used to happen around the kitchen table
The kitchen is often called the heart and soul of the home. Information technology's where meals and memories are made, where families and friends get together, where traditions are born, and where stories are told and retold.
The kitchen table, then, occupies a place of honor as the eye of the center of the home.
Take a moment to picture your own childhood kitchen table. Was it pocket-size and intimate or large and sprawling? Was information technology polished and smooth or scarred and well used? Were there blemishes and imperfections that you can trace dorsum to the fourth dimension somebody spilled some smash polish or set downward a sizzling pan without using a hot pad? What games do you remember playing on, around, or underneath that tabular array? What family stories were passed around the table as predictably every bit the bowl of mashed potatoes?
After Cody Delistraty's mother passed abroad and his brother moved overseas, he was left lonely with his father. Every bit he recounted in The Atlantic on July 19, 2014, mealtimes were solitary affairs at first until his father decided that their mother would have wanted them to continue to swallow together, even if it was merely the 2 of them. "Eating together was a small human activity, and information technology required very little of us—45 minutes away from our usual, quotidian distractions—and yet it was invariably one of the happiest parts of my day," Delistraty said (Cody C. Delistray, "The Importance of Eating Together," The Atlantic, Jul.18, 2014).
Even beyond the important conversations and family connections that occur when meals are prepared and eaten together, the kitchen table often plays host to countless other bridge-building activities—from scripture written report and family domicile evening lessons to craft projects and cookie decorating. Many of these pastimes may seem mundane and commonplace in the moment, but the traditions they foster can carry us through times of heartache and upheaval.
A Lifeline in a Time of Loss
Crystal Farish, a family history missionary and presenter at the RootsTech family history briefing in 2017, recounted how the traditions established in her grandmother'south kitchen were a lifeline for her when she needed them almost (Allison Kimball and others, "Grandma'southward Syrup: Fortifying Your Dwelling with Family History," RootsTech 2017).
"Every Sunday nosotros gathered around my grandmother'southward table for family unit dinner," Crystal said. "[Grandma always prepared] the aforementioned meal: roast beef, mashed potatoes, red Jello, and Swedish coleslaw . . . served in a bowl with pink flowers and a spoon that once belonged to someone who served in the Civil War" (Kimball and others, "Grandma's Syrup").
Beyond the Sunday gatherings, Grandma's table as well hosted countless holiday traditions, including making ruddy velvet block for Valentine'due south Day, decorating gingerbread men and houses for Christmas, and jubilant many holidays in betwixt.
Crystal said that while they worked, her grandmother would tell stories. She created a window from the past to the present.
By the fourth dimension Crystal was 12, both of her grandfathers had already passed abroad, and then she lost her father three days before Christmas that yr. During this time of intense loss and mourning, what did Crystal's grandmother do—a woman who had already buried her married man and had but laid Crystal'south father to remainder, who died at the tender age of xxx?
"My grandmother, on Christmas Eve, gathered us around her table," Crystal said, "and we did what we always did—family history. We fabricated roast beef and mashed potatoes and coleslaw. We constructed gingerbread houses, and nosotros shared stories of the people from our past that now included stories about my dad" (Kimball and others, "Grandma'due south Syrup").
The comfort of her family'southward food traditions sustained Crystal and gave her a sense of normalcy after her earth had turned upside downwards.
Making Your Own Kitchen Tabular array Traditions
Whether you realize it or not, you already accept some established family community that circumduct effectually your kitchen table. Recognize and honor those traditions; they are the stuff memories are fabricated of.
Besides be intentional about creating new and lasting traditions that reflect your about important values. What exercise y'all want your children and grandchildren to call up most mealtimes at your business firm? Are there other ways you can add deeper meaning to the gatherings that already take place in the eye of your habitation? How tin can you call upon those traditions to sustain your family during times of trial?
Here are a few ideas:
- Create a set of questions or conversation starters to put in the center of the table to spark memorable discussions. The #52stories project is a corking place to first.
- Prepare an erstwhile family unit recipe, and share stories about the person who first made that dish every bit a way of creating a window from the past to the present.
- Enjoy the same traditional meals together as a family unit when different holidays whorl around.
- Sit down together at breakfast fourth dimension, and read the scriptures together while you consume.
- Use the quizzes and prompts at the end of this article to write downwards kitchen tabular array memories from your babyhood and share them equally Memories on your Family Tree.
- Get inspired past these stories shared past others on FamilySearch, from the kitchen table that mysteriously collapsed during Sunday dinner to piles and piles of cloth on Dorothy Hansen'southward table to a tonsillectomy performed on Irvin Delora Zundel at the very tabular array where he ordinarily ate breakfast.
In a higher place all, make time to eat together with your loved ones as oftentimes every bit y'all tin can.
If you'd like to larn more virtually how nutrient traditions bring family unit together, click here.
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Source: https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/building-bridges-with-kitchen-table-traditions
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