Together

There's something about the Table, isn't there?

So many of the memories that I have with family are wrapped around food in some way, shape, or form. Especially this time of year. Especially when I think about all of the Christmases that I spent as a child running from one house to the next to the next. Seeing all the relatives, sure, but also, eating all the food. 

We would wake up in the morning and go to my grandmother's house, where she always had stockings overflowing with snacks. I'm talking good snacks. Apples, oranges, beef jerky, candies, all the things. I always looked forward to digging through that stocking, which often times was an actual men's extra-long tube sock. 

Then, we'd go to my great-aunt's house, and the smell hit you as soon as you walked in the door. Ham, falling off the bone. Beans (gross, but you could still smell them). Pies. Macaroni and cheese by the panful, one of my great-aunts standing there putting the crumbs on the top, fresh out of the oven. 

We would come home, and there were cookies. There had been cookies for days, honestly. All kinds of them. Sugar, wedding cakes, chocolate chip, chocolate crinkles. 

'Tis the season.

Am I right?

I think a lot of us think about the food when we think about this time of year. But it's not really because the food is something special. There's not really a time of the year when you can't have a ham. Or macaroni and cheese. Or beef jerky. Or cookies. (Did you know you can totally have sugar cookies in June if you want them? You can!) 

No, it's not the food that's special. 

It's something about the way that food is spread, the hands that prepared it, the voices around the table. It's something about the way that food makes us feel like we're home. 

Ah, yes. Home. 

The same is true today, and every day that we partake of this Table. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I love it so much. I walk in the door, and I see the Table set - bread and wine, fellowship, love - and there's something in my soul that just exhales and says, I'm home. 

Home. 

Right where I belong. With all of the folks who love me most. With the smells coming from the kitchen and the table spread thick and the ham and the cookies and the macaroni and cheese. And a tube sock with my name on it, stuff with fruit and beef jerky and all the good things. 

It smells like bread and wine in here, and it gets me every time. 

This is home.