Table Stories: What the Christmas Table Means to Me

The devotion to joy and love, that’s what the Christmas table is about for me, writes our media manager Tamlin.

Every year, my mother begins long before anyone arrives. The night before, she makes her tiramisu and trifle, never only one dessert. She slips a few spoons and sips the brandy that goes into her dishes. She makes a night of it, with a Christmas movie. The rest of us sleep. On the day, she keeps busy, cleaning the house for her guests, cooking in unison with my father. Gammon and chicken slowly cook in the oven. There are vegetables for the guest who’s gone off meat, spinach and gem squash steamed until tender and glossed with melting butter, and sweetcorn for the grandchild who will happily eat cob after cob.

We don’t sit down to eat together often but for Christmas, the long table is set and dressed with chitenge cloth for colour and joy, scattered with trinkets gathered from around the house, each one finding its place. There are Christmas crackers waiting to be pulled, as they have every year since I was a baby.

Around the table sit four generations. My gran still grows teary when she thinks of Grandpa not being there. Sparkling wine sends some into an afternoon nap. Carols drift through the house, with the Beatles’ Christmas covers and we all bop around the garden in the summer sun. There is always far too much food for one meal and over the following days family members will open the fridge to find slices of gammon, spoonfuls of trifle, and little reminders of Christmas that stay long after the table is cleared.

The devotion to joy and love, that’s what the Christmas table is about for me. The butter melting over vegetables, desserts no one needed but everyone hoped for, the familiar pop of a Christmas cracker, and the comforting certainty that, for one afternoon, everyone had a place waiting for them.

It’s also about the joy it gives my mom.