Lilac Sunday Dinner Party

This was one of our family Sunday dinners at my parents’ house. The reason for the elaborate florals is that it was springtime, and my mom has a beautiful garden. While the garden is in peak bloom through spring and into early summer, we have a tradition of arranging flowers every Sunday when I come home for a visit. This leads to setups that feel more akin to a wedding or an elaborate event than a casual family dinner — even though, in reality, they are just that.

For the food and drink, it was whichever bottle of wine my dad picked out and whatever he decided to make. Since us kids have left home, my dad has taken over cooking Sunday dinners when we come home to visit, and he makes some pretty spectacular meals. As I’ve just zoomed in on the photo, I think he made steak with some form of roasted red pepper, mushroom, and asparagus.

The decorations, as I mentioned, are all flowers that were cut from the garden out front. Living in Vancouver, we are in a temperate rainforest, which means the sheer volume of plants that grow is pretty remarkable. It looks like I cut a lot of flowers, but in reality we’re talking about 15-foot-wide bushes and entire lilac trees, so the portion I take for a giant chandelier like this barely makes a dent.

Immediately before we sat down at the table, I can guarantee we were probably playing cards while eating our body weight in charcuterie and drinking No Boats on Sunday cider. And afterwards, we were almost certainly watching Clarkson’s Farm eating a Cadbury fruit and nut chocolate bar. I feel very fortunate that our family is able to get together like this. I know someday we won’t have this opportunity anymore, so I always try to make a special memory out of every single one.