Fourteen People in a One-Bedroom

This year, I volunteered to host Christmas dinner. I live in a one-bedroom apartment on the third floor. My family has fourteen people. My mother asked, very gently, if I had thought this through. I had not.

We made it work. I borrowed folding chairs from three neighbors. My brother brought two old doors from his garage, and we laid them across sawhorses to make one long table that ran from the kitchen through the living room and halfway into the bedroom. We covered it with every tablecloth we owned.

My grandmother sat at the head, which was technically in front of the bathroom. The kids ate on the bed. My uncle carved the turkey on the windowsill because there was nowhere else to put it. Every time someone needed to get up, six people had to stand and shuffle.

It was cramped and hot and wonderful. We laughed so much the downstairs neighbor knocked to ask what was so funny, and then stayed for pie. My grandmother said it was the coziest Christmas she'd had since she was a girl, when her family of nine lived in two rooms.

Next year, my mother is hosting. But we're keeping the doors.