The Table is Set

No matter how early I got out of bed when I was a kid, I would come down to a set breakfast table. Even during the school week. Even in the winter when my alarm ("You're listening to 95.5, WP.....L....J") would go off in the pitch black. Even when I was the first one up on Christmas morning, I could expect to flip on the kitchen light and see five plates, five place-mats, five juice glasses, five forks, knives, and spoons. This was not Santa or Santa's elves at work. It was my dad, who had set the breakfast table the night before, after dinner, after the dishwasher cycle. After we had all retired to our bedrooms to do whatever it was we did before teenagers holed up in the dark texting their friends. When my friend Jenny would call me at night the first thing she'd always ask was, "Did Ivan set the table yet?"

We made endless fun of him for his obsessive advanced planning -- and yet, there I was, two years ago, with our holiday table all ready to go (sans the fresh flowers) a full wee…