The View from the Head of the Table
On tradition, responsibility, and showing up
My grandfather carved the turkey every Christmas.
I’d watch him from my spot at the kids’ end of the table. The methodical way he worked the knife, how everyone waited until he was done, the quiet authority of the ritual. I didn’t understand what I was watching then. I just knew it mattered. That Christmas meant going to their house. That the day had a shape to it, a rhythm we could count on.
We’d do our thing at home first. Presents, breakfast, the chaos of wrapping paper and new toys. Then we’d pile in the car and head to my grandparents’ house for the rest of the day. Board games in the afternoon. Stories. The smell of turkey roasting. Dinner at the big table with my grandfather at the head, carving.
I remember the year we got Twister. We played it on their living room floor until we were tangled and laughing and someone’s elbow was in someone else’s face. Right hand red. Left foot blue. The simple, stupid joy of it.
My wife and I have had an empty nest for more than a decade now.
Getting everyone together isn’t automatic anymore. Our kids have their own lives, their own rhythms, their own morning traditions with their families. The gathering requires intention now. Planning. Coordination. Someone has to be the anchor point everyone returns to.
So that’s what we became.
A few years ago, we gave our grandsons Twister. Same game. Different generation. Now we play it every time we’re together. They probably don’t think much about it. It’s just something we do at our house. But I think about my grandfather and what gets passed down when you show up consistently, when you hold the center, when you create the container for people to return to.
I understand now what my grandfather was doing at the head of that table.
He wasn’t just carving a turkey. He was holding a tradition. Creating a space where scattered people became family again. Making sure we all knew where to come back to. Year after year. The same house. The same table. The same rhythm.
Traditions don’t just happen. Someone has to do the work. Someone has to send the invitations, make the dinner, set the table, buy the Twister game, keep showing up even when it would be easier not to.
I’m that person now. Not because I’m trying to recreate my childhood or preserve some Norman Rockwell fantasy. But because I know what those Christmas dinners meant to me. I know what it felt like to have a place to return to. I know my grandsons are watching the same way I watched my grandfather.
They’re learning what consistency looks like. What it means when someone holds the center. What gets preserved when someone cares enough to pass it forward.
On Christmas evening, when everyone’s fed and the gifts are opened and we’re sitting in the aftermath. Someone on the couch, someone on the floor with the kids, wrapping paper still scattered around. I see it clearly.
This is the work that matters.
Not the building and grinding and hustling. Not the content or the community or the business. This. The gathering. The stories. The laughter over a ridiculous game from the 1960s. The simple act of creating a place worth coming back to.
My grandfather gave me that. Now I’m giving it to them.
Merry Christmas. Be the person whose table they want to return to.
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Great story with a much needed lesson. Have a Merry Christmas, JP!
“Don’t tell me when to celebrate — you’re not the boss of me.”
That’s always been my rebel stance around holidays. My partner and I have both lost our parents, and with no family close, there wasn’t much tradition to return to. We’re creating our own now, in ways that actually fit us.
Great piece reminding me that choosing tradition can be playful, intentional, and deeply meaningful. It really hit the spot.