The tie that binds

Holiday traditions can be long-standing or just recently introduced. The beginnings for many can be traced back decades (maybe even centuries), involving several generations. Others may have just begun and will be remembered by future generations as the genesis when celebrated by our posterity.

Whether old or new, traditions, especially those tied to a holiday season, often define families and what they hold dear.

For Cheryl Sanders Vann of Sallisaw, her calendar revolves around a Christmastime tradition started by her grandmother 40 years ago. And if she has anything to say about it, the annual custom will still be celebrated when her grandchildren become grandparents.

As is often the case with traditions, food and family gatherings are central, and the reason so many stand the test of time. Maybe it’s a homemade salsa an aunt brings each year for the holiday gathering. Or maybe it’s a broccoli and rice casserole another aunt brings that nobody eats, but she still brings it year after year.

But unlike some eclectic feasts eagerly anticipated each Christmas, the Sanders-Vann tradition is not about what dishes are placed on the table, but rather what covers the table that the dishes are placed upon.

It’s a tablecloth.

Not just any tablecloth, mind you, but one that documents four decades of family gatherings, tracing personal celebrations that could include relationships (budding romances that may or may not have survived), births, academic milestones, jobs, exotic trips, the addition of a new pet, guests present for the Christmastime gathering and, in some cases, memories of those who formed the foundation for the annual praxis.

But be prepared. This is a participatory tradition. The white tablecloth is almost filled with signatures, dates and memories, but there’s still plenty of room for this year and many years ahead.

So if you don’t want to sign the tablecloth, which is required to partake of the meal, don’t accept an invitation to the home of Shannon and Cheryl Vann for Christmas Eve.

“That is the requirement, you have to sign the tablecloth. So friends that come, if you bring a friend — there’s friends and boyfriends, no telling who’s on here. Anything that’s special to you at the time.

“We put the tablecloth on the table at Christmastime every year, and for anybody — family, friends, anybody that is there to celebrate Christmas with us — we make sure that they sign the tablecloth so that we have a record of it,” says Cheryl, who became the keeper of the tablecloth when she began hosting the yuletide event.

“It started in 1984,” she recalls. “Everybody will put their name and a year if nothing really has changed. But, as people move, grow up, have kids, change jobs, go to school, anything like that, they’ll document that. Anything that they think is fun and interesting for the year.”

Everyone participates

Examples of the history recorded on cloth include Riley and Jordan announcing they got a new puppy, Cheryl (hearts) Doug 1987, and children tracing the outline of their hand and printing their name (sometimes misspelled), with the latest addition being Cheryl’s grandchild Nolan in 2023. Expect a new inscription this Christmas — “We had another grandbaby this year, so we’ll be putting her handprint on,” Cheryl says of granddaughter Jac (pronounced “Jack”).

“Christmas is the only time it’s used. Grandma always kept it, and then would bring it out at Christmastime. So when I started having the family Christmas at my house, I am now the keeper of the tablecloth. I’m the family archivist; I’m the one that keeps all the family stuff. So I’m now the tablecloth keeper,” Cheryl says with pride. “It just records our goings and comings as a family. It’s been a lot of fun.

“We pull it out every year, put it on the table. We use it, we eat on it, everything. We go back and look where people have been and who was there that year.

“Anybody can put anything on there, not just if there’s a big change. For instance, like the grandbaby, new parents, if they get a puppy,” Cheryl explains. “You don’t know until you get to the tablecloth and you find out what’s gone on.”

In the early years of the tablecloth tradition, the plan was to designate a family member’s “territory” by the color of the Sharpie used to inscribe the message.

“But as the years have gone by, we just grab a Sharpie [and write wherever space allows],” she says. “It has been a fun way to document where we’ve been, where we’ve gone, maybe where we’ve visited, if somebody took a fun trip they might document it on there.

“If it’s a friend or something, they’ll just find a spot. We do have some longtime friends that make it to the holiday, so it’s nice to go, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember when they used to come.’ We have a cousin (Julie) that used to come from Chicago, but she’s closer now. Sometimes a relative might bring a relative from the other side of their family — here was a brother and sister of a sister-in-law, so everybody’s welcome at the table, and you just sign the tablecloth.

“So it’s a nice record of the family, what was going on, who all came. There are some family people that don’t make it every year, but we just try to record as best we can who got to come to Christmas,” Cheryl says.

When Cheryl’s grandparents, Ellis “E.B.” and Cherie Sanders, passed in 2017 and 2018, respectively, “we thought about it, and wanted to retire the tablecloth,” Cheryl recalls. “We really thought about it when Grandma and Poppy were passed, whether we should retire it or not. But we decided no, that Grandma would not like that at all. She would definitely want to keep going. This was something that was very important, and she made sure everybody signed the tablecloth before they left. So we’re going to keep going as long as there’s room. It helps us remember. This is our family history right here.

What it’s become

“My grandma started it — I think she read it in a magazine, saw the idea in a magazine,” Cheryl says. “She started it, and it’s just something we’ve kept up with, and been able to do every single year. I hadn’t thought about it, but it’s been 40 years now. And there’s still room [to write], so we’re just going to keep going until it runs out of room. That’s what we’ve decided to do. My aunts and I decided that she (grandmother) would want us to keep going, so we’re going to keep going.”

Cheryl says “about 30” family members and guests usually attend the Sanders-Vann Christmas festivities, traveling from as far away as Virginia, Mississippi, Chicago, Texas and across Oklahoma.

“Everybody makes an effort to come together at Christmastime. That’s our big gathering. We do it Christmas Eve. We play games, eat lots of food, just have a good time. That’s our family gathering. People do other things for Thanksgiving and stuff, but everybody makes a commitment to come for Christmas.”

Cheryl says she thinks the tablecloth tradition increases the anticipation for those who visit, especially those who have participated in the past.

“I think it would be a really sad day if the tablecloth wasn’t there. It would be very sad. Everybody expects and knows that that’s the thing that they’re going to do. No matter what, they’re going to show up and sign the tablecloth.

“It’s fun whenever you look at the kids when they try to draw their hand. It doesn’t quite turn out. Sometimes they’ll draw shapes. So it’s fun to see the kids, what they did,” Cheryl says.

“We’ve had some no-nos — somebody tried to scribble something out. So you can’t do that, we don’t allow that,” she says of those who want to “edit” a prior year’s inscription, usually when a relationship sours. “Once it’s there, it’s there. It’s like a picture. It happened, it’s there, it’s a memory. So no scribbling, and you can’t X out anything. You’ve got to keep it.”

Cheryl acknowledges the time may come when she will pass down the tradition, passing the torch to future generations.

“I will pass it down to the next person. I think we have a lot of years left. Whoever’s running Christmas at that point — it may be me for several more years — but whoever takes over the Christmas hosting will get the tablecloth. If nothing else, we’ll just pull it out and we’ll use it as a decoration. But I imagine we will start a new one. I would hope that we would start a new one at some point, but I think what we’ll do is just start writing where it’s faded. I think we just keep using it. I think we’ve got a lot of years left. I hope.”

Doug, then Shannon

Forty years of family tradition has also generated family drama, or, at least, scrawlings that lend themselves to explanation and context.

Enter the story of Doug.

“I had a boyfriend one year, two years, and I put him on here,” Cheryl reminisces about her Sallisaw High School boyfriend, who was added to the tablecloth on consecutive years in the 1980s. “So that was something that was special to me, and so he’s been on the tablecloth, and that’s something I get teased about every year.

“But it’s no different than moving jobs,” she contends.

“It was definitely pre-Shannon, absolutely.”

Does Doug’s last name need to be revealed?

“No, but Doug knows,” she says. “Doug knows he’s on the tablecloth.”

Cheryl’s husband Shannon was added to the tablecloth in 1988, their first Christmas together. Also documented were the Vanns’ move to Lawton, when Shannon was mayor of Sallisaw, when he became a Good Neighbor agent (complete with hand-drawn State Farm logo), when Cheryl became a half-marathon fanatic, when she had a sewing/embroidery business, “just documenting fun stuff through the years, whatever’s the most important.”

And the best part of the Sanders-Vann Christmas tablecloth tradition, “it’s a fun, easy tradition. Super easy.”

“All you’ve got to do is be able to find the tablecloth the next Christmas,” Cheryl jokes.

“It’s something super easy that anybody can do. And who would have thought that it would last for 40 years?”

The tradition, whether long-standing or recent, is a lot like the marquee in the lobby at Vann’s State Farm Insurance office: Take care of your family’s tomorrows by making plans today.

You may not choose your tradition. The tradition may choose you.