When we lived in our old house, Gramps and I had a large dining room. We designed the house to have a large dining room because we had many plans to have family dinners, friendly gatherings, and holiday celebrations around a big table in that room.

And we did! We honored birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and graduations. We decorated for and celebrated every holiday you can imagine from Valentine’s to July 4th to Christmas. We had friends over for no reason at all except to enjoy those we love. We shared foods of every kind; old trusted recipes, new adventures in eating, appetizers, desserts, drinks and snacks.

That one single room with a table, chairs, sideboard and built-in cupboards held so many memories for us. Memories of long talks, singing, great meals, playing games, babies laughing, children clapping, new people joining the family, remembering, and planning. It seems impossible that a space with only wooden furniture and a couple of windows could be the treasure hold of 25 years of such joy and sharing. But it certainly did!!

So, of course, when we looked for our new home, we wanted a dining room. We wanted to continue the traditions we started and keep having all those grand affairs in the new dining room. A dining room was a “must have” and a dining room we got. One with tall ceilings, built-in cupboards, moldings and wood floors. By any standard, she’s a beauty, all right!

In the last eighteen months in this new house we have been blessed with birthday parties, block BBQ’s, family dinners, last-minute meals with friends who stayed to help paint, celebrations of all kinds. We are making new memories here and enjoying gatherings of every sort.

The one thing that hasn’t happened? We haven’t used the dining room for any meal, except for overflow seating at the BBQ. For some reason, it just hasn’t worked to use that particular room for that particular purpose yet.

And you know what? It’s okay! Everything is a little bit different now. Different neighborhood, different house, different furniture, different ways of making times happy. So we use the kitchen table or the patio or our laps, we still have great meals, great conversations, great laughs.

No matter what, where, how or who, we will always have joy, laughter and friendship around the table. The time spent will always be a true celebration and the memories will last a lifetime, dining room or no dining room.