The creation of a meal ...

Christmas dinners past and present - are usually the same.  A turkey with stuffing, potatoes and gravy, and cranberry sauce, and, for the rest, the family who is coming over brings the salads, other vegetable dishes, and dessert. Dessert is usually cookies: molasses, sugar, cream, jam-jams - to name the most popular.  I imagine making everyone wait for the feast, while all the food is arranged in a setting similar to the one above. 
Or perhaps, like this picture, a pose before anything is prepared,only all the ingredients selected, all food placed so as to be in the natural sunlight, focusing the viewer's thoughts on the  moments before the feast begins to be prepared.  A still-life portrait of all Christmas dinners to come, as well as the one to be prepared in the almost-present.  With our patriarch (for he is the one who currently prepares the main dinner now)  sitting in his chair, beside the carefully arranged food.
The light in this picture,  like that of  a Vermeer painting, illuminates the still-quiet scene, capturing the moment before action takes place. It reveals to us that this  moment in time, just now stopped for us to consider, is however, bound to be repeated,over and over, with variations. The creator is ready to begin.