The Family Dining Table Package

Growing up, we never had a children's table. We never wanted a children's table. We all wanted to sit at the grown up table. So the grown up table had to be bigger than your average dinner table.

Good things happen at big tables. They are the perfect place to set up a game of Trivial Pursuit at one end and Monopoly at the other (although someone should have probably put the Monopoly money away because I may have cheated on occasion). A big table is an ideal location to set up a Barbie Dream House because a table makes a much smoother driveway for the pink corvette than carpet. It is also the best possible place to set up all of the Teen Beat magazines you tricked your grandmother into buying you so that you can be completely up to speed on how Ricky Schroeder spends his days and nights.

But the best thing that can happen on a big table is a family dinner. It does not have to be formal and fancy. As a matter of fact, my favorite summer meal on the big table that sat at our lake house did not even require plates. Every now and again, my grandfather would back his Carolina blue El Camino up to the table and roll out the most beautiful watermelons you have ever seen. From one pocket, he would pull a knife and from the other a salt shaker. It was the stickiest, most delicious meal that big table ever knew. It was perfect.

But come dinner time, the china and napkins would come out and the meal would be served. Hours later, plates had been cleared but most everyone still sat around that big table. Sitting at that table we learned the tales of our parents and grandparents childhoods. And because the table was big enough for everyone, nobody could possibly get away with not telling the whole truth to the tale. Because there was at least one other person at the table who could correct them. So we learned the real history. Without that table, I wonder if we would know those stories.

Pour yourself a tall glass of something cold, pull up a chair and sit a spell. Share a few memories. And hopefully make a few more.

But it all starts with a big table.