For The First Time Ever!! See The Pictures To Prove It

All of the "guides to being a perfect Jewish house-frau" include getting the Shabbat table set before lighting candles.  I have something to confess.  That's something in my forty-plus years of marriage, I've never managed to do. I remember, as a young mother, looking in total confusion at neighbors' diningroom table on a Thursday,already set for Friday night.  It made no sense to me.  Setting the table was always something I did when my husband was in shul.

In recent years, the diningroom table has become our eating and computer table.  The laptop, which I'm using right now, sits on it from soon after Shabbat until a short while before Shabbat.  So, there's no way it can be set for the leil Shabbat, Friday night meal, even Friday afternoon.

But somehow, even though it's still winter, and Shabbat comes in pretty early, and we were unexpectedly expecting guests, I found myself with enough time before candle-lighting to set the table, just after my husband stored the computer in one of the spare bedrooms.

I quickly set the table and took pictures!  This is how the table looks.  And when the young couple who were our guests popped in on the way to shul to drop off the wine and challah, the table was waiting, looking very impressive, nu?