NEXT AVENUE SPECIAL SECTION
Snapshots of Holiday Memories By Barbara Rady Kazdan
"Hon, should we add leaves to the dining room table so everyone can sit together? Or set up a kids' table?"
"Let's have everyone sit together. When the kids are older, they can have their own table."
I picture those childhood holiday gatherings as if the flash bulbs had just popped, lighting up those familiar faces: my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and us kids — my sister, me and our cousins. In those black and white images, I can tell which holiday we're celebrating by the dishes that Grandma and Mom, Aunt Ellie and Aunt Jo fixed. Over time, the grown-ups in those photos grew older and the kids bigger — becoming teens, then grown-ups themselves, then parents with tots in tow — in what seems now like no time at all. Did my gray-haired, bespectacled grandparents see then that there would be fewer chairs around the table before long? Did that thought cross my parents' minds? As a child, it never pierced my today-is-the-only-day awareness. Other pictures followed – in Kodachrome color – of gatherings in suburban homes, with Dad at the head of the table, Mom preparing the meal or my uncles and aunts doing the same at their houses. For a while, grandparents with faded eyes blinked in the camera's flash along with new faces: first newlywed spouses, then babies in highchairs, toddlers in booster seats. For years, we regrouped to celebrate holidays. But when the glint of braces marked teenage smiles, Grandma, then Grandpa, no longer graced our table.
"But when the glint of braces marked teenage smiles, Grandma, then Grandpa, no longer graced our table."
Then Daddy died. Suddenly, in his prime. Soon, Mom sold our family home and moved to the city. Before long, our Thanksgiving photos captured her second wedding, One unforgettable day, Mom moved to Florida with her newly retired husband. My generation — my sister Julie, my cousin and best friend Lynn, and I — married and moved away, each to different destinations. After that, our children rarely saw their cousins. On holidays we'd get together, not with family, but with friends and neighbors.
But did we make new memories for our children? Create our own traditions? Yes.
In a flash, it was the children who welcomed us to their holiday tables, with our grandchildren first in highchairs, then boosters, then cushions on their chairs, then no cushions needed.
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DECEMBER 2023
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