Setting The Table

When my family gets together we plan a lot of activities.

Mostly meals.

But those delicious, loud, boisterous, satisfying meals need to get put together, and then cleaned up, and that's often where the fun is.

Jacquie's slave girl is up for chores or duties of any kind, so she often gets the nod when it comes to setting the Table . . .

. . . with the help of her Auntie Ellie . . .

. . . and her cousin Chapel Hill Girl.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen . . .

There's always a lot of activity and everyone finds her own task to do, like make the salad or put away the hors d'oeuvres or refill drinks, and MB mans the sink. When you try to relieve her of her duty she pulls her "I'm the oldest" routine.

Mistah noticed the preponderance of pretty dresses this day and made everybody stand together. Julie yelled at us from the next room not to take a photo without her in it (the thought!). I think she may have been, I don't know, on the phone? Maybe?

I dearly wish I could share the video of us 20 or so years ago, at Mom and Dad's house in Norwalk. It's Thanksgiving, I think, and we're all in the kitchen cleaning up, listening to the Wedding March from Aida from the next room. We burst into a spontaneous parade, marching around the kitchen table, banging pots and pans lids.

That was a clean-up for the ages.