Danny Heitman is a columnist for the Baton Rouge Advocate and editor of Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum magazine.

The dining room at my house seats six, and the Thanksgiving guest list for our extended clan has sometimes numbered three times that. Where do we put the extra folks?

It’s a question no doubt being asked in countless American homes this week — and a dilemma older than the republic, as popular images of early Thanksgivings seem to suggest. In “The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth” a 1914 painting by artist Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, the Pilgrims and Native Americans are depicted at the 1621 feast in the open air. A dining table and chairs stand under a lovely autumn sky, ostensibly because small dwellings like the cabin in the background are too cramped for the large circle of celebrants

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