At the Table

Let's be honest…the night of December 25 can be a bit of a letdown, right?

The gifts have been opened, the carefully prepared food has been devoured, and in my case—with three little ones running around—the recently-cleaned house has been destroyed.

But I didn't used to feel this way. When I was little, I looked forward to Christmas night, because for many years our tradition was that soon after Christmas breakfast we got dressed, packed the car, and zipped down the interstate from Fredericksburg, Virginia, to the city of Newport News. You know the song: "Over the river and through the woods..." You can guess where we were going.

Fact: My Grandmama Davidson was a hands-down amazing Southern cook. Some of her specialties included crispy fresh fried chicken, tender well-seasoned pork barbecue, and collard greens so tasty you forgot you were eating a vegetable. And, if you somehow finished a meal still hungry at her house (although this is highly improbable), you needn't fear: homemade coconut and pecan pies would be waiting out on her back porch for dessert. I could go on and on about her cooking, but I'll keep it short; I've already made myself hungry.

But all this wonderful food aside, the meal I most looked forward to at Grandmama's was the rather humble one she served us right after we arrived. I knew what we would have, because we always had it; without fail, it was her beef vegetable soup. Except we never called it that, because in our family that soup had a proper name: Grandmama's soup.

Oh, Grandmama's soup. She served you a bowl of this hot delicious goodness, alongside a grilled cheese sandwich, plus some sliced cheddar cheese and Ritz crackers.

I know, I know, compared to all the other things she could make, perhaps this does not sound terribly exciting, but you have to understand this soup, and just how much I love it.  Her soup had a distinct flavor to it—not something I've ever had replicated anywhere else. A day or two before Christmas she made a big pot of it, and then she'd put it back on the stove to simmer shortly before we arrived. The flavors had really blended together by then, and the aroma was so enticing and consistent that it greeted you at the front door like a familiar hug. I miss those Christmas nights, sitting around Grandmama's dining room table, crumbling crackers on top of my bowl of soup and talking and laughing with everyone about the day. Those were some good times, and that was some good soup.

Several years ago, my sister, Sarah, compiled a family cookbook, and she wanted to include the recipe for Grandmama's famous (in our family) soup. Grandmama was happy to oblige except that she didn't know the exact recipe; she fixed her soup so often and in the same pot that she simply went from memory. "Add water until the pot is about yay-high," that kind of thing. To get the recipe, Sarah spent an afternoon watching Grandmama prepare it while she recorded the measurements and the process. When I saw the recipe on paper for the first time, I remember feeling surprised. It was a remarkably straight-forward recipe for something that always tasted so delicious, and there was only one "secret ingredient" that was discovered along the way: a couple of tablespoons of white sugar. (Sugar in soup, who knew?)

For years now that recipe has taunted me from the family cookbook. Many times I've read through it and thought, I could do this, but what if it didn't come out right? What if it was a total flop? Or, what if it was close to Grandmama's soup, but didn't exactly taste the same? Then I'd just have a big pot full of regret on my kitchen stove, and who wants that?

This year I finally worked up my courage one day to make the soup. I purchased the meat and the vegetables, and a large quantity of canned tomatoes. The tomatoes made me sad; Grandmama would have used her own homegrown tomatoes which she would have canned, but hey, you have to start somewhere. When I got home I cut up the potatoes, sliced the carrots, and then, carefully like the recipe says, I added in the ingredients in the order listed, making sure to simmer each group of items for the proper amount of time. I ran into a bit of a snag towards the end, because apparently my soup pot is not as large as Grandmama's; the soup filled up the pot completely, and I had not yet added the corn. Oops. Everything was about to boil over onto the stove, so I ladled out some of the broth and kept the rest simmering precariously a mere half-inch below the rim. I live dangerously when I make soup.

I tasted it here and there that afternoon and felt like it was getting close, but it wasn't until we sat down to dinner that I really dug in to see if what I had made was like so many happy memories from my childhood. To my great relief and excitement that night, the soup turned out as perfect as I could have hoped. It was so authentic that if I closed my eyes I could almost pretend I was back there again sitting at her dining room table. It was a seriously good feeling.

The thing that surprised me out of the whole experience was just how much work and time went into making one batch of soup. That soup was a lot of work! And Grandmama made that soup all the time; who knows how many dozens of quarts of soup she fixed in a whole lifetime of cooking? How many hours must she have spent peeling potatoes and slicing carrots and onions, all to make sure that her family was fed well when they came to her house? Nine or ten-year-old me, sitting at her dining room table hopefully had the good graces to thank her after I ate her food, but even if I had, the truth is that back then I didn't fully grasp what I was thanking her for. Yes, I was thanking her for a good bowl of soup, but I didn't know about all the work that went into it because a) I'd never seen her make it, and b) I'd never done it myself to fully appreciate it. In other words, I knew I was getting a good gift from her, but I didn't - because I couldn't - comprehend the true cost of her gift.

When we thank God for sending His Son to be born into the world at Christmas, we are like a child at my grandmother's dining room table. We don't fully grasp what we are thanking Him for, because we cannot wrap our heads around what it really cost Him.

I am neither a physicist nor a theologian, but when I do try to imagine the universe's Supreme Creator confining and submitting Himself to the physical laws of nature that He Himself designed and ordained…

When I think of the Ruler of Heaven appearing as one of us, walking in a broken world, experiencing hunger and thirst and pain, all for the purpose of dying a brutal death in order to redeem our race…all I can say is that it is beyond me. The cost, the value: it is more than I can measure, deeper than I can fathom.

Perhaps on this side of Heaven, we will never really grasp what it cost God to come into our world at Christmas, but perhaps that is also okay. I am a mother, and when I prepare a meal for my children, I don't expect them to comment on the monetary value of the food I bought at the grocery store, or the details of the time and work that it took me to prepare it. But I do appreciate it when they respond with a genuinely grateful heart: that is enough to make me smile.

Matthew 2: 10 tells us of the Wise Men:  "When they saw the star, they were overjoyed."

It would be easy for me to say that this Christmas we should all respond like the Wise Men: wholeheartedly and unreservedly with joy. But I don't know what you have faced this past year. This year may have been your best year ever, or one of the most difficult of your life. Or perhaps, like me and my little family, it was somewhere in between, having its own blend of good and hard times, and mostly I'm left scratching my head at how it went by so fast.

But this year I will try, I want to try to respond with joy and gratitude for the Christmas season, because there is much to be thankful for, from the very big things all the way down to the very small.

For the Incarnation we cannot fully understand. For a Savior we know we need. For family, and for old friends that feel like family.

And for good gifts prepared with care, like a Christmas night dinner at Grandmama's table.

Anne Sewall, Christmas 2017