I am thankful for family dinners.

I am thankful that my grandparents — all four of them — held family dinners at their houses.
And that they passed them down, so that my mom and dad loved them and instituted them at our house, too.

(I almost said they "believed in them," but honestly, it was more deeply ingrained than that. it was just what was done.)

Not that I never resented being asked to come to the table and sit and make conversation and let the phone ring and ring and help clear and rinse and stack and all of that. I did. I was 13. And 14. And 15.

But mostly (and I swear this is not rose-colored glasses) I remember teasing and laughing and looking up words in the dictionary and events in the Encyclopedia. I remember telling long detailed stories about math class and the 3rd grade guinea pig. I remember running lines for the school play. I remember trying, for the first time, artichokes and fondue and gazpacho. I remember making placecards and coming up with wild new ways to fold napkins. I remember playing telephone and 20 questions and pig. 

And now, thank goodness, I have my own family who are more than happy to circle ’round every single night — whether we’re eating rice & beans or something more refined — to share tales from the trenches, to poke a little fun at one another, to try to understand everything from weather phenomena to Wikileaks. Sometimes it’s long and leisurely, other times someone nearly falls asleep at the table, or gets up to play piano or demonstrate a crazy playground move.

But regardless of context or even of content, the family dinner always serves as a centerpoint — a pulling in on the threads of a button so that it holds tight to the coat, a thing of both beauty and function, of comfort, of something we all can count on…