Work is the way you express your personal purpose in the world.  Linda Marks

Holidays, Holy Days, Feasts, and Rites all share the attribute of memories. They are about remembering and creating new memories. Traditions, values, wisdom, and love are handed down, re-enforced, and created a new. Storytelling over dinner or while opening gifts or worshiping together is a powerful lever. In Kitchen Table Wisdom, Rachel Naomi Remen writes, “Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around the kitchen tables and told their stories. We don’t do that so much any more. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering.”

Cooking and baking and the smells of the kitchen are huge memory makers. There is something about our biology that makes memories associated with smell lodge themselves deeply in our brain. Kitchens are getting bigger and bigger and become more of the center of the home. Why is that? It is because kitchens unconsciously remind us of the fire or hearth of ancient times. We want to circle around the fire again and hear each other’s stories and memories. They nurture us as well as the food that fills our stomachs.

The sense of touch is also powerful. That is why a warm towel fresh out of the dryer or a warm cozy robe feels so wonderful. We want to wrap our homes in that warmth however possible. We want to touch each other with loving and warm hearts that aren’t over taxed by all the preparations. Then the memories for future years are laid down in snug beds.

In Home – Inspired by Love and Beauty, I document all the practical and powerful benefits, especially to children of the family meal and storytelling. Homes can change lives.