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Events in our past and our perception of, and reaction to, them can often throw different slants on the same event. My sister-in-law, Enid, was remembering the huge Christmas meals I once prepared and commented on the large portions we all consumed in those days. She started me off on a long, and very different, journey. My own recollection was more of the people around the table, which occasionally included some hitherto unknown faces. Enid's widowed father would bring along his sister and maybe a nephew or two, or friends of friends would join us: they weren't so much gatecrashers as interesting 'unknown quantities'.
Fortunately, 'Gracious Living' isn't my style, so setting last-minute unexpected places was all part of the fun. Sometimes, soup ladles, serving spoons and, on one desperate occasion, even a skewer was called into use as 'cutlery'. People even shared knives, if necessary! Seating was the real problem, once we had purloined whatever our neighbours could spare. Ingenuity put the linen basket and garden-kneeler (reverse side up!) to good use, then we fell back on planks of wood between two widely spaced chairs, to make extra seats. It was advisable to have 'heavies' on the outside positions and a lightweight or two in between!
I soon realised that this relaxed, impromptu attitude was much appreciated by everyone, and probably contributed to the ever-increasing numbers round the Christmas table over the years. It removed anxieties of how to accomodate everyone, whether invited or not, as we all co-operated, becoming cheerfully involved in the happy semi-commotion ~ even before a drop of Good Cheer passed our lips! There would often be twenty or more people round the table ~ the room must have had elastic sides. I look back with nostalgia to such 'Good Times', which sadly disappeared with divorce and single parenthood. It took me many years to realise that I had been fortunate to have experienced about ten such times, because Life would have rearranged its inevitable changes, anyway. The loss of such Family Christmasses was one of the hardest parts for me to bear, once I was demoted to single status. Although basically a loner, I do love the exchange of shared meals and ideas.
As a child, I was sent to a weekly boarding school at the age of four-and-a-half years because my mother's health wasn't good, and this arrangement kept me 'out of the way'. When home, I would be shut in my bedroom for the same reason, and this continued into my teens. My brother, Phil, is ten years my junior. We moved house when I was just coming up to my fifteenth birthday, and continued to be shut, but not locked, in our rooms. A bell would ring downstairs and we would both go down to the butler's pantry (it had once been a rather grand house but was, by then, somewhat decayed) and collect our meals, already on two trays and take them upstairs, while deciding in whose room to eat together. It was certainly a rather oppressive regime!
I still don't know why we never ate together as a family, other than when my mother's parents came for a Christmas meal .... and what a hostile and judgemental occasion that was! A truly horrendous memory of 'Gracious Living', complete with the best dinner service, bone-handled cutlery and the best Edwardian wineglasses, three sizes per place setting. It's no wonder that Gracious Living isn't for me ~ I have neither the inclination nor the fine equipment for it.
Unfortunately, the cruel and intentionally cutting remarks made by my grandfather were much sharper than the knives. It didn't help that my mother was in awe of her father, nor that her parents looked down on my father for being a 'self-made' man (pulling himself up through his bootstraps through scholarships, hard work and over-whelming ambition). As his confidence diminished under Grandad's intolerant personal attacks, Daddy would imbibe too much Dutch courage and execute some social misdemenour, such as tucking his pristine linen napkin in his neck or, even worse, using it to wipe nervous perspiration from his forehead. Fortunately, this was a strictly closed-door small family gathering, so the horror of it never touched anyone else ~ although it has marked me for life.
With a background like this, it's hardly surprising that my own aim in life is for a relaxed, tolerant, sharing-and-caring way of living, complete with that most vital ingredient, the ability to laugh ~ especially at oneself. I call it a Sense of the Ridiculous. It puts everything back into proportion. Here is a quote that makes me smile:
"An ideal isn't responsible for the people who believe in it." Don Marquis
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