Family dinners

[Rascal]

Do you guys have family dinners weekly or even monthly? We do Sunday dinner here every Sunday, started with me the wife and our 2 kids, after about 15 years theres now 10 of us. 4 kids included. I supply and cook everything, the kids help clean up. It's a blessing that our kids live within 25 mins away, when it's your birthday you get to choose an entree and a main. Tomorrows my granddaughter who chose cheesy garlic bread then smoked chicken shrooms pasta sauce with fettucine . It's her fave. I feel very lucky to see my kids real regular. Do you guys get together often??

Russ

 

[Addie]

For the first 15 years of my first marriage, we ALL sat down to supper, seven days a week. It didn't matter if you were going to be late for baseball practice, or any other activity you were planning on attending. Every Sunday and on special holidays, we had a feast. The leaf went into the table, the good dishes came out along with the table cloth and matching napkins, and the meal would last for a good two hours. the kids were expected to pitch in without being told. They could gripe all they wanted to, but it always got done.

Unfortunately, illness came visiting, (cancer) and it became every man for themselves. I was at the hospital day and night. After the funeral, the kids were pretty much grown and starting to live their own lives. I still have three kids that live within three minutes of me. And one who lives in Vermont. One of the three kids lives with me and presently is my caretaker. But we still make an effort to have a sit-down Sunday dinner for just the two of us.
Come holiday time, I make Hershey's Dark Chocolate Cake in a bunt pan for each household. Five in all. It looks like a Christmas Wreath with edible holly leaves and green coconut.

I honestly believe that family meals are what made my little family the close knit members that they are. I gave them happy memories while feeding their bodies. It was a time to catch up on everyone's daily activities. It was at one of these meals is when engagements were announced, who was expecting a baby, who was buying their first home, etc. Important family events.

 

[Andy M.]

I grew up in a home where we ate every night as a family. Sunday dinners (around 2:00PM) were standard. The menu was usually roast chicken with pilaf and a salad.

When I got married we had dinner together every night and on the weekend.

SO and I eat our meals together every night. Weekends are less significant when you're retired. Her children are all in FL. Mine are nearby. We see them on holidays and special occasions.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Mom, Dad and I often eat together. Mom cooks, I am the only one working as the folks are retired. I'm getting used to having them cook for me and it makes Mom happy.


I still have not learned to cook for one, I end up with lots of leftovers.

 

[roadfix]

With our busy schedules we're all over the map. Someone in our family is sure to announce a last minute BBQ get together this weekend. I'm good with that.

 

[GotGarlic]

DH and I eat our meals together, when we're both home (which is most of the time). We have no other family nearby.

 

[Aunt Bea]

Not in years.

Growing up we ate together almost every night in the dining room with the television off and eating Sunday dinners together after church was the norm.

I think that a family sharing a meal and the events of the day are very important.

Don't worry about setting aside a special time or place, get together over a delivery pizza or a bucket of chicken and focus your attention on each other for an hour or two every chance you get.

 

[larry_stewart]

I grew up having family dinners every night. As we got older and the introduction of boyfriends and girlfriends, Friday night and Sunday night were the designated family dinner nights. Once we married, moved away then moved back again and the addition of kids, at least once a month we would all meet at my moms house on a Sunday, celebrating whatever holiday it was and / or celebrating whoever's birthday or birthdays fell in or around that month or day. As the kids ( their grandkids ) got older and went away to college it became less frequent but still major holidays and probably every other month.

We would always sit under this old oak tree in the backyard as a family. I remember the tree when my dad first planted it and we used to measure him to the tree to see which was taller ( eventually the tree won). Anyway, when hurricane sandy hit the area, that tree was toppled over, (luckily missing the house) and my parents moved to another house. Just wasn't the same without the tree.

As an immediate family, we always had family dinner every night. When I was doing my residency and had to sleep at the hospital, my wife would bring the kids and we'd eat at the hospital. I work 2 late nights a week, so either they wait for me to eat, or they have dessert as i eat my dinner. Now , the kids older and often in other states ( my son in Montana for the school year and my daughter doing internships , last summer in florida and this summer in Massachusetts ( Thank God for spell check, Ill never be able to spell that state correctly on my own), were only all together for a month out of the year and we try to have family dinners as often as we can.

 

[Rascal]

Great stories and memories. Good when food brings us all together.

Russ

 

[caseydog]

Growing up, my sister and I ate together, and my parents ate together when we were done and off watching TV. We did sometimes eat dinner together on Sundays. When there were big family dinners with the grandparents and aunts and uncles, they were usually at our house -- usually Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Today, I cook for my parents and sister two or three times a year when I go to visit them. I've lived in my current house since 2001. My parents have been here about three times, my sister, once. They have never eaten a meal in my house.

I do enjoy cooking for the family, and so far, they have loved the food. I overcooked some Jamaican rice and peas big-time once, but nobody complained. The rest of the Jamaican-style meal was cooked right. I like to push my family beyond their usual, very limited culinary boundaries. And, they seem to like it.

CD

 

[Rascal]

It can be expensive cooking for 10 but there are 4 kids, I know it's going to be even more costly as they get older.

Russ

 

[larry_stewart]

I like to push my family beyond their usual, very limited culinary boundaries. And, they seem to like it. CD

My family is so routine, I can tell you exactly what is on the menu over the next decade as long as i know what the occasion is and whose house its at. I dont know if its a matter of keeping tradition, not having the know how or desire to make anything else or just pure laziness.

This is where I come in. Sure i keep a few of the 'favorites' in play, but i always try to introduce a few new things which always go over really well. Part of is because Im just so bored with whats provided, part is because Im known as the ' one who can cook; in the family, part is because Im vegetarian and they always make faces and comments about that, yet anytime I bring anything to eat, its always the first to go and always the one everyone asks for the recipe or for me to bring again the next time. I just dont know how anyone could eat the same thing over and over again. Sure I like tradition and there are many dishes I do want to eat over and over, but trying something new is always an interesting and exciting experience ( at least for me). Sure , there are the occasional flops, but I only bring dishes that i have already made and passed my standards as ' something i can bring that I know everyone will love'. the failures get fed to the chickens, raccoons or make a one way trip over the neighbors fence.

 

[cjmmytunes]

My father passed when I was 7. For the longest time, my sister, my mom, and I would go to my grandmother's house every Sunday and eat lunch with her and other family members. As we all got older, we went out separate ways. My mom remarried when I was 23 - welcome 2 more sisters, a brother (and I was still the baby of the group), and various other family members to the group. My grandmother got sick and moved in with my Mom and stepdad. The group started having weekly meals at my Mom's house.


My stepfather passed in 1992, that whole part of the family abandoned us because he left life rights to my mom & grandmother to his house. But our side still came over for Sunday dinners and on holidays. My grandmother passed away in 1996, and the weekly family dinners became a thing of the past. We still had holiday dinners together but through the years my aunts/uncles passed away and the family got smaller. Now, a family (non-holiday) dinner is just my mom and I, and sometimes our neighbor across the street. We go to a Christmas dinner with my cousins and their families the Sunday before Christmas, and we have my 2 surviving aunts, my sister and her husband and our neighbor across the street for lunch on Christmas Day.


It's sad how events can effect families.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

It occurs to me that our last big family dinner was the year my cousin was killed by a drunk driver. After that my Great Grandmother went downhill fast and could no longer host. Each family went their separate ways. Odd gatherings as we could make them every two years or so, always with someone not being able to make it. Last one was Mom, Dad, Shrek and I...our 25th and M&D's 50th anniversaries. That was 8 years ago, my Aunts (maternal) and their families were there.



We will be meeting with the remnants of Shrek's family & friends and my immediate family on Saturday for Shrek's Memorial. Pulled Pork, Hamburgers and Hot Dogs with salads and watermelon. It will probably be the last time I see my stepkids.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Do you guys have family dinners weekly or even monthly?...

This has varied as much as our 43 years of marriage have - and even before, when I was living "at home". I'm an only child, and never knew my grandparents as they had all predeceased my birth. When I was single, we always ate dinner together every night. At first it was my parents, my aunt (Mom's sister always lived with my Mom), and me. When we moved from a rental to my parents' first (and only) home of their own, she moved with us and we added a great aunt. Then it was five of us at the table every night of the week, and Sunday dinner in early afternoon.

When I married, Himself and I spent many Sundays (and weekdays) and most holidays at the folks' table. My in-laws lived in FL, so we would visit on some of the big holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving. Most of those, however, were with my family since I am an "only" and my SIL and her family were living in FL at the time.

When Himself and I had our own two kids, we had nightly meals at the kitchen table every night that we could. Himself's job involved travel on and off during his employment, but the three of us would still do the nightly meal together. When the kids got older and involved in sports and scouts, some of those dinners might have been at 9:00 PM, but we gathered most nights! Once our son went away to college, and Himself had moved from OH to MA on a job relocation, our daughter and I would still sup together about half the time. When our son was driven home from college by a friend, Matt spent a couple of days with us. He was surprised that we all sat down to dinner together. His family never did that, except maybe on big holidays.

Now that it's just the two of us, Himself usually takes a tray into the living room to watch something I don't want to watch, and I sit at the kitchen table reading and listening to a ballgame or sports talk. We do get together with his sis and BIL (who moved to MA for job opportunities and now live at the top of our street) for the lesser holidays, or "just because" every once in a while. Those are all sit-down meals at the kitchen or sun room table, depending on what the weather is.

Now when we go back home to visit the kids, this Mom moves right into our daughter's little condo kitchen, fills the fridge, and does what she's done all her life...cook a family dinner for the four of us every night (except when our son has other commitments, then it's three-with-leftovers ). Our daughter keeps asking when we're moving back so she can swing by our home to eat at our table.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it...mostly because I spent enough time editing this post already.

 

[dragnlaw]

I think time and distance have pretty much ruined "family dinners" for many. Families live so far apart now it is not really by choice the dinners slowly start to disappear.

Like a lot of you, the 40's, 50's, most of the 60's were probably big family meals. By the mid-60's young family's were moving away from the 'home town'.

I have a sister in OK (she splits between there and FL), a sister (who refuses to travel anywhere nowadays) mid-Ontario, a brother just north of Toronto, my late brother lived in BC and before that northern Ontario, I'm in Quebec. My late parents were in Toronto and then east of Toronto. they were our hub and by the late 80's we almost always gathered there on Mother's Day along with her brother and as much of that family that could turn up. For most of us it was a 6 hour or more drive.

My own family, one son within 40 min.(if no traffic). Other son just west of Toronto. Both my daughters are in Edmonton.

My SIL & I used to have "family holiday meals" then it was my ex and his girlfriend & I usually doing that. Especially when the son from Toronto comes into town. We all get together then. We plump up the numbers inviting some of their old school friends along (and their kids & usually dogs as well well at least I do - the ex's girlfriend would have a heart attack with all that running thru her place).

I do miss the big get togethers - but have to admit, felt I was doing most of the work and am feeling a little... put out? something.

Still have a hard time not cooking for a gang. A lot of my friends love it thoug as I usually invite someone once or twice a week to help me eat. It's either that or stand at the end of the driveway with doggy bags for truckers passing by!