The Relatives Came...bearing aprons!

I may not wear pearls while cooking like June Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver) or wear a nice dress like Aunt Bea while serving breakfast (Mayberry) but I do love to wear aprons!  Last night I made homemade butternut squash-apple soup and a nice hot loaf of Irish soda bread, and my apron saved my clothes from a thorough dusting of flour.  But even more than saving my clothes from splatters and stains, my aprons bring back great memories.  I didn't feel like modeling so one of my dining chairs became my dress form last night. My husband and son watched but wisely said nothing while I draped my aprons over the chair...I think they are getting used to my blogging idiosyncrasies.  Either that, or they have decided I really have gone around the bend and are just too nice to point it out.  Which they should be, since the homemade soup and bread were for them!

Memory number one:  family.  I love Thanksgiving and I have so many happy memories of friends and family gathered around my big dining room table.  We sometimes hosted up to forty people, and had to borrow extra tables and folding chairs from our church to accommodate everyone. We usually had more than one "kids" table and it was all lively and noisy and fun.

A special cousin and her family joined us for many years, and I have wonderful memories of the two of us chatting up a storm in the kitchen as we put the final touches on the meal and watched our children run around doing all the crazy stuff cousins do when they get together.  One year she brought a lovely old- fashioned  porcelain St. Nick that is still the first decoration I unpack each Christmas. Another year it was the charming book The Relatives Came, which I carefully lay out on the coffee table each holiday gathering. Every time I pull it off the shelf in my library it summons back so many happy memories of loving times with special relatives.

And another year it was this harvest apron, which is my go-to apron almost every time I cook.  I love how soft and comfy it is, and I especially love how it makes me smile, even though it must be close to twenty years old.

The apron, like this page from the book, is a great reminder of the really important things in life--the laughing, the faces shining with pleasure, and of course, the hugs.  Oh those relatives indeed!

I'll be back tomorrow with another favorite apron that evokes special memories of England every time I tie it around my waist.  In the meantime, here's another apron poem to tug at your "apron" strings!  This one is by Joyce Johnson--I hope my aprons hold as much endless love as this Mamma's apron does!

Mamma wore an ample apron To cover her clean dress. She’d tell you that’s what it was for If you’d asked her, I would guess. But that apron had more uses Than I could even count. It brought in eggs and vegetables And could hold a large amount. Her apron could bring giggles In a game of peek-a-boo With her newest, sweet grandbaby As she hid her face from view. That apron dusted tables And shooed away the flies And did just fine as oven mitts To take out bubbling pies. But the greatest of the treasures That old apron could hold Was the endless love from Mamma 

Abiding in each fold.