The Party's Over

Nothing left to do but eat leftovers and wash dishes. I have a general ban on washing dishes the night of the party, or worse yet, while the guests are still here. At my childhood dinners, we had to wash the dishes before we ate dessert. ( I do, however, follow tradition in that the table is cleared of all the food before dessert is set out. I hate the look of gnawed on food, and random plates of pickles or gravy pitchers.)

We had the kind of thanksgiving dinner that I dreamed of as a lonely young woman. Another couple, with children near our children's ages. THey praised out food, spoke intelligently about topics wide and near, and put up with the very crabby dog barking at the kids. ( We worked out that she seems to have a sore ear- I am hoping the vet clinic is open tomorrow or Saturday and we can get it seen to. I am also hoping that Dream Dog is crabby because of the sore ear, and will return to being wonderful after it is fixed.)

We four adults talked about love, history, politics, race, religion, medical pot, music, our parents, our kids...everything. There was no dividing up of the men in one room and the women in another. There were no hurt feelings or angry words. There was no rush for the evening to be over, at all. Wine was drunk, and no one drank too much. Stories were told, and no one bragged. The children busied themselves, happy with unlimited access to the computer games, and the tree house and a very cool toy called a stomp rocket. The came back and forth, delivering little updates on their activities in the next room, eating clementines and second pieces of pie. At the very end, the two youngest spent time sitting in parent's laps.

The refrigerator is full of food, the sink is full of dishes, and my cup runneth over.