This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Time for an important Thanksgiving warning. By offering this tip, I hope to help families avoid one of the major holiday mistakes — seating.
When should a child be allowed to move from the small/kids table to the adult or big table? Correct answer: Depends on the kid.
For example, considerable thought should go into what a kid might do with food cooked by an eccentric (loony) relative.
Suppose a well-meaning but visibly demented aunt brings a casserole that looks and smells like rat heads baked in hemorrhoid ointment.
When forcibly served a portion of the offending casserole, a kid seated at the small table has more options than he or she would at the big table, including:
1. Shout: "The pilgrims didn't have to eat this walrus barf!"
2. Pretend to eat some then surreptitiously spit it into a napkin.
3. Audibly yack it onto the floor for the dog.
4. Force the food into the head of a smaller sibling.
By the time I reached the age of holiday dining accountability (shortly before leaving for the Army) I had tried all of these. Number two worked the best but sometimes required a napkin the size of a tarp.
Number one got me snatched from the kid table and into a broom closet so fast that my siblings swear it produced a sonic boom.
So, exactly when should a kid graduate from the little table to the big table?
The obvious answer is when the child can manage himself at the big people table. For most children this is around the age of 11, or when they've learned to use all the utensils in the manner for which they were intended. For others it can be never.
Another factor is space. Some families are so small and other families so well off that they can afford to seat the entire family at one table. I pity both.
I say that because of table conversation. At the big table, adults waste oxygen discussing at length stuff they can't do a damn thing about: politics, religion, sports and taxes.
At the small table, the conversation has a much broader and more entertaining range, from hilarious orifice noises all the way to how far up one's nostrils will both sides of a turkey wishbone go?
I had a cousin so proficient at the first that no one would sit in her chair for a month after Thanksgiving. As for the second, it depends on how much pain a kid can stand. For some it's a lot. For me it was emergency room a lot.
Finally, there is the issue of table manners. Can the child be expected to eat without getting food on the walls and nearby diners?
Even better, for a nominal sum could the child be induced to say, "This is really yummy walru- … casserole, Aunt Ding."
This year I have two granddaughters who will be graduating to the adult table. Bailie and Hallie are young ladies now and can be expected to behave themselves in an adult setting.
The rest of the immature grubby nose explorers will have to stay at the kids' table and gaze wistfully as they watch Hallie and Bailie go to the next dining level. It makes me so proud of them that I wish I could go too.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.