Table Settings

With three kids, my mom tried split the chores three ways, and we'd rotate each week: set the table, put the dishes away, or do the dishes. Setting the table was always my favorite task, not only because it was the easiest but also because it was the most fun. I loved putting the plates out, making a pattern with the different-colored plates or giving the girls pink and the boys blue.

And when company came, my mom would always save this task for me because she knew how much I loved it. (And maybe because she knew I really couldn't do much to help with the food?) Together, we'd add leaves to the dining room table while Steph and Joe and Daddy would help carry up chairs. We'd pick out the table cloth--the red and blue checkered, the sailboat checkered, the pink and green and blue checkered--and lay them out before getting the spray bottle and stretching them to get out the wrinkles.

The plates would be carried out from the kitchen, or sometimes if we were lucky (VERY LUCKY) we'd get to use the pink china and grape glasses. More often, the fancy silverware that was my dad's mom's would get pulled out from the buffet, along with the platters and salt and pepper shakers and candlesticks. Then we'd lay everything out, remembering how the placement went thanks to our cotillion training and the little tricks we'd picked up since. (The knife, spoon and fork were all in a fight. The fork left because the spoon and the knife were right.) And I would still try to make a pattern with the plates.

As I get ready for my dinner parties now, setting the table is still my favorite part. I rearrange the living room depending on many people we need to seat, put up the leaves in the drop-leaf table my father-in-law built custom for us, and lay out the tablecloths. Of course, one thing we didn't think of when designing the table was what size tablecloths we would eventually need, and I think of how excited I was when my dad and I realized that shower curtains fit just right, and together, my parents and I picked out the first shower curtain tablecloths for the first dinner party with them at our house.

It's fun for me to pull out some of our "fancy" things when we have people over--the silverware my family got us for a wedding gift that is essentially the same pattern as the one that was once my grandma's, the platters and pitchers and glasses from family and neighborhood friends, the plates and bowls from my aunt, the place card holders from a friend. There are so many people associated with our dinner parties that it seems as though everyone we love is there, even just in spirit.

And even when it's just me, my process is the same as it always was when helping my mom in our dining room with the view of the mountains. And especially when it's just me, I wish my mom was here so she could help me make sure the tablecloth is even on both sides.