A question about the Thanksgiving table reminded me of my mother’s tradition of welcoming unexpected guests and the family stories we still tell today.
Will There Be a Seat at Your Thanksgiving Table?
Last week, I attended a church event where the speaker asked a simple question:
Will there be a seat at your table?
At first, I thought about Thanksgiving tables. As someone who enjoys decorating, I immediately pictured centerpieces, dishes, place settings, and all the little details that make a holiday table feel special.
Then I started thinking about the tables that have been part of my life over the years.
Some tables moved with me.
Some tables got left behind.
Some have been gone for years.
But the memories gathered around them have stayed with me.
The more I thought about that simple question, the more I realized that the tables I remember most are not the ones with the prettiest centerpieces. They are the tables where stories were shared, laughter was heard, friendships were formed, and people felt welcome.
And whenever I think about that kind of hospitality, my thoughts always return to my mother’s kitchen table.
My Mother’s Table
When I think about Thanksgiving, my thoughts often return to my mother’s kitchen table.
It wasn’t a large table. It wasn’t a designer table. It was simply where life happened.
For many years, my mother hosted foreign students from the University of Illinois. When Thanksgiving arrived, there was often room at the table for students who were far from home and unable to spend the holiday with their families. Sometimes there were other guests as well, people who didn’t have another place to go or family nearby to celebrate with.
At the time, I didn’t think much about it. It was simply what my mother did.
Looking back now, I realize she was teaching me something far more important than how to host a holiday meal.
She taught me that hospitality isn’t measured by the size of the table or how many chairs fit around it. It’s measured by a willingness to make room for one more person.
When I look at this old kitchen table, I don’t remember every Thanksgiving menu or every centerpiece. What I remember are the people. I remember the conversations, the laughter, and the feeling that there was always room for one more guest.
That simple lesson stayed with me long after the meals were over.
The Stories We Still Tell
Like most families, we have a handful of Thanksgiving stories that get told over and over again. They’re rarely about the perfect meal or the perfect decorations. Instead, they’re the stories that make us laugh years later.
There was the year Thanksgiving dinner was still frozen.
Then there was the year nobody wanted to eat the turkey because everyone was afraid there wouldn’t be enough to go around.
Several years while I lived in Cincinnati, my parents and I traveled to Rochester, New York, to spend Thanksgiving with our dear friends Angie and her family.
One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories revolves around the appropriate size turkey to purchase when you are expecting twelve people for dinner. I will admit that I probably would have bought the same size turkey Angie did. However, our mothers were both beside themselves that Angie had only purchased a 12-pound turkey to feed twelve people.
Because of the fear our mothers instilled in everyone that there wouldn’t be enough turkey to go around, hardly anyone ate any turkey at all. As it turned out, there was plenty left over! We’d all been saving it for everyone else.
To this day, almost every Thanksgiving, I reach out to Angie and ask if she has her 12-pound turkey in the oven.
Now, about that frozen turkey… It was sometime in the late 1990s as we were still living in Urbana, IL and my parents were still living in the farmhouse. My Mom and I decided to purchase one of the prepared packaged Thanksgiving dinners from one of the area grocery stores. All we had to do, they said, was cook the turkey for x amount of time, heat the sides up and the meal would be ready to eat! Sounded simple enough! Mom and I followed the directions regarding the turkey and when it came out of the oven…… it was still stone cold and raw inside!
My Mom was not happy. We had guests and no turkey to feed them. Somehow we had been given a box that included a turkey that had not been thawed out at the store as it should have been. Unbeknownst to us, ours was still frozen in the center when we put it in the oven. We never tried the prepacked Box o’ Thanksgiving dinner again.
In hindsight, we should not have assumed that the turkey would be oven ready. Even though it was advertised as such.
Years later, I don’t remember every Thanksgiving menu, but I certainly remember the stories.
The Tables Change
As the years passed, the tables in my life began to change.
There was still my mother’s kitchen table, but eventually there were tables of my own. Some followed me from one season of life to another. Others were left behind. A few disappeared altogether.
One table, in particular, holds a special place in my memory.
For years, it sat in the dining room of the farmhouse. It witnessed holiday meals, family gatherings, and countless ordinary days that didn’t seem remarkable at the time.
When I moved to Cincinnati at age 25, that table made the trip with me. Suddenly it became part of a completely different chapter of life. New friends gathered around it. New memories were made. The table itself hadn’t changed, but the people sitting around it had.
Around the Same Table
Looking back at this photograph, I don’t notice the table first.
I notice the faces.
The friendships.
The season of life it represents.
Yet the table quietly played its part, providing a place where people could come together, share a meal, celebrate milestones, and create memories.
Eventually, my Cincinnati chapter came to an end and the table made its way back home to the farm.
A number of years later, Dave and I moved into the farmhouse, and once again that familiar dining room table became part of the story.
By then, life looked very different than it had when I loaded the table into a moving truck at twenty-five. Family gathered around it, holiday meals were shared, and new traditions began to take shape.
One Thanksgiving stands out in particular.
It was our first Thanksgiving in the farmhouse. My parents had moved into the modular home, and our guest list included the new minister and his family, Angie and her family, and several other guests. I wanted everything to be just right.
As anyone who knows me can probably guess, I was already thinking about the table.
I carefully packed one of my Adagio china cups and took it to the flower shop so Rick could create a centerpiece to match. I wanted the flowers, the dishes, and the table to work together perfectly.
At the time, I thought a lot about the centerpiece.
Looking back, I realize what I was really doing was preparing a place for people.
The dishes, flowers, and decorations helped make the table welcoming, but the guests were what made it memorable.
The same lesson I had learned years earlier at my mother’s kitchen table was quietly finding its way into my own home.
Different Tables, Same Purpose
Over the years, gathering around the Thanksgiving table didn’t always look the way I expected it would.
One year, my mother was recovering from a fractured knee and spending Thanksgiving in a nursing home while she completed rehabilitation. Taking her home for the day wasn’t really an option. I knew if I took her home, getting her back to the nursing home afterward would be nearly impossible.
Fortunately, our friend Bridget stepped in.
Bridget was like a daughter to my parents and graciously offered her restaurant as the location for our Thanksgiving celebration. My aunt and cousins from Indiana joined us, along with Dave’s oldest son and his family.
We carried in our Thanksgiving meal and spent the afternoon doing exactly what families have done around tables for generations: eating, talking, laughing, telling stories, and enjoying being together.
The setting was different, but the purpose was exactly the same.
I’ve always enjoyed creating a welcoming table.
Whether it was choosing dishes, planning a centerpiece, or adding seasonal touches throughout the house, there was something special about preparing for family and friends to gather.
A beautifully set table has a way of telling guests they are expected, appreciated, and worth the effort.
But over time I’ve learned something important.
The flowers fade.
The meal gets eaten.
The dishes are washed and put away.
What remains are the memories.
Will There Be a Seat at Your Table?
As Thanksgiving approaches, I find myself thinking again about that simple question:
Will there be a seat at your table?
The longer I live, the more I realize the answer has very little to do with the table itself.
Over the years, I’ve gathered around many tables. There was my mother’s kitchen table, where foreign students and unexpected guests were welcomed as naturally as family. There was the old dining room table from the farmhouse that later traveled to Cincinnati and became the gathering place for friends. Years later, it returned to the farm and became part of a new chapter once again.
Some of those tables are gone now. Some were left behind when life moved in a different direction.
But the lessons learned around them remain.
When I look back on those years, I do remember some of the decorations. I remember special dishes, favorite centerpieces, and the effort that went into preparing holiday meals.
But what I remember most are the people.
I remember conversations.
I remember laughter.
I remember stories that have become family legends.
I remember the guests who pulled up a chair and became part of the celebration.
Perhaps that’s why that question has stayed with me.
This Thanksgiving, I will probably spend time arranging dishes, fluffing a centerpiece, and adding a few seasonal touches to the table. Old habits die hard.
But I hope I never lose sight of what my mother understood so well all those years ago.
A welcoming table is never really about the centerpiece.
It’s about making room for people.
The tables have changed over the years, but the lesson hasn’t.
And maybe that’s the real question for all of us this Thanksgiving:
Will there be a seat at your table? 🍂❤️
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