Peace on Earth

Mid-holiday season, the time between Christmas and New Years, I am enjoying the music, the bundling up to keep warm, the conversations with old and new friends, and the excuse to eat favorite foods.

Holiday music, the blues and funk have been playing in the house. My daughters have decided that cooking to soul music is more inspiring than traditional holiday music. A walk across the kitchen becomes a dance.

Actually, it isn't that simple.

I get the feeling that listening on Pandora Radio via the internet is more than a metaphor. The open box, it seems, is the conjouring room called a kitchen. The ingredients include past knowledge and all kinds of trouble that are the stuff of family politics. My daughters are now in their mid-twenties. They have taken over the kitchen for holiday meals.

Ideally, we would be doing a dance to encourage each other to do what they do best or perhaps express their deepest desire. This holiday cooking time moved beyond beginners luck of glorious meals produced uneventfully to this time where we had ovens that cooked unevenly, a turkey that wasn't going to serve enough as people were added to the guest list, and foods that we simply ran out of time to prepare.

During the last holiday meal preparation, there was a meltdown. Chaulk it up to hormones.

One of the kids had tried to tell me how to make roasted veggies. I basically told her to back off. She could make the dishes she was making her way. I was making mine my way. The son-in-law tried to intervene. I certainly wasn't dancing gracefully at that moment. Couldn't I just have acknowledged her ideas and moved a little kinder in the kitchen?... my kitchen?

That was part of the problem. When the girls cooked, they really worked well together. But I was the one who couldn't figure out how to share space. I had become used to cooking alone in this kitchen. When they were home, there was almost a glee in kicking mom out of the kitchen, mom's kitchen.

We moved a few years ago from a very tiny house to a more spacious home. When we cooked in the old house, we couldn't help but bump into each other as we moved around the tiny space. Now we had more space, a different space, in a different time.

These women have taken favorite recipes from their grandmothers and great-grandmothers and are making them their own to bring to the holiday table. There is such emotion in this cooking.

As the guest list grew and it became clear that one turkey would not be enough, I pulled out a beef to roast. Well, that screwed up the intricate, but unseen schedule someone was keeping in their mental calculations. Actually, I'm not sure who was figuring this out, but all hell was breaking loose.

Ovens were cranked up hotter, hands moved faster, recipes adjusted, creative cooking got more creative. Someone was trying to keep up with cleaning pots and pans, so that we could reuse them for other dishes. We were doing a dance and didn't know it.

Dinner was served a little later than planned. That's okay. There are family members who always come late anyway. Those who leave early stayed a little longer. Funny how this worked out.

Hospitality is a grace that my maternal side of the family understood. It isn't just the food, it is the awareness that everyone counts and is included. Truth be told, some of those dishes are awful, but are so packed with memories that they have to be included. This stuff defies logic. But each food or gift or conversation brings with it a connection to something larger than the face of the thing. I suppose it is love in all of its imperfect and messy glory.

Later in the night when everything was winding down, Pandora was switched off and traditional choral music was playing about the birth of Christ and the hope that comes with it. Somehow this music, too, motivates my family to find our groove in that most feminine of gifts: nourishment and hospitality.

As with our family holiday prayer: may this food be put to the use in the service of building God's Kingdom here on earth. Bless all who are here and especially those who aren't. Peace be with you. To which I would add, may love be with you in all of its imperfect and messy glory.

I wish all these things for you... and if you get a chance to eat Bean's angelic homemade mashed potatoes or Pumpkin's pies you are in for a treat. Their tag lines could be: No storebought instant foods used, or specializing in comfort foods. This proud momma can imagine a heavenly rest-stop/restaurant here on earth.