Family dinner

This weekend it is Mother's Day, and as usual we are having a get together with the family (my husbands family as my family live 300kms away). On Saturday there will be eight adults and six children at my house expecting to be fed and entertained. So far it has taken about seven phone calls, a trip to the grocery store, a few hours cooking, and numerous in-house conversations.

That said I still have to clean the bathrooms, vaccuum the house and prepare a little more food.

It seems like a lot of work to go to, but then I think back to when I was a child. My mother is one of seven, my father one of six, I have three siblings, and 43 first cousins. Yes 43.

My brain goes into shut down just trying to imagine the amount of organisation that would be required to get that many people together for any kind of event. It wasn't that often that all of us were in the same house at the same time, but I do recall one or two ocassions.

A couple of Christmas days come to mind, lunch was all about Mum's family, they would arrive mid morning and leave mid afternoon, then tea was about Dad's family who would arrive late afternoon and leave when all the food was gone lol! At any given time there were babies to hold, feed, mind, rock etc, toddlers to chase around, older kids to play cricket with and anyone who wasn't quick enough found themselves stuck in the kitchen wielding a tea towel (the days before dishwashers were standard kitchen appliances and child labour was expected).

Given that, I shouldn't complain about having to organise one dinner for 14 people really :-)

(I am not really complaining, I am in fact quite looking forward to it, I am just not looking forward to the last two hours before everyone arrives.)