You get a limited number of holidays with everyone at the same table. One day the chairs start changing.

The full table is temporary in a way nobody tends to say out loud. People move, work weekends, start their own families, get sick, and the arrangement you think of as normal turns out to have been a specific configuration that lasted a few years. It shifts gradually enough that no single year announces itself as the last one.

At the next gathering, put the phone down for the hour everyone is actually seated. Take a bad photo of the whole table. Ask the oldest person there one question you have never asked.