Hours to prepare.

No, days to prepare if you count the meal planning, the sweeping and mopping and dusting, and the turkey choosing and purchasing. Even so, I was up early yesterday still in my pajamas frying bacon for grumbling tummies.  I stayed in the kitchen while they watched the Rockettes in the Parade, wrestling a twenty-pound bird into a roaster, chopping the chocolate for the pecan pie, and the dicing the ginger and apples for my cranberry galette that would leak all over the oven later that afternoon.

Hours.

Families arrive bringing hugs with arms full of casserole dishes and cheek-kisses while setting down bags of sweet rolls.  And then together we set out stemmed glasses, heirloom china and my mother’s silver (that I secretly hope I get someday).  We light the candles, play games of UNO and wait for the turkey to finish in the oven. More hours.

And then we eat.  For 30 minutes. Hours of preparation for only a tiny sliver of the day spent around a table.

One of us clears, one of us washes one of us dries. Another of us puts the leftovers into the bulging refrigerator shelves and someone starts the coffee.  It takes two more hours before my kitchen is back to where it began two evenings ago, with cleaned counters and put-away dishes.  We women talk over the steaming sink while the men fall asleep in front of the television, and even as old-fashioned as that may seem, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Hours to prepare, hours to put away, for a few minutes of chewing and sipping.  But the pleasure isn’t in the eating.  The pleasure is in the sipping of vanilla coffee as the sun goes down with dish-soapy hands.  The pleasure is pretending I don’t see my three-year-old steal her 5th chocolate pretzel from the dish by the pies and sneak off into the other room where she won’t be scolded. Its in the elaborate dance we instinctively do in the kitchen as we jockey around each other for knives, cutting boards and spoons to stir gravy.

The pleasure is in the hours before and after the meal standing and laughing with my favorite people in the world.

What did you find pleasure in yesterday?