I believe strongly in eating together every day as a family. All together. At the same time. Sitting down at a table with plates and prayer and “please pass”. I honestly believe family dinner is one of the weapons we have to defend and protect our families from an increasingly crazy world. (See this post.)
Because of these deep beliefs, we work dance, piano, sports, church meetings, and life around family dinner time.
Except Friday nights.
Chad and I are often on a date, kids are at friends’ houses or we have a house full of kids’ friends. Eating pizza at the bar in shifts or without mom or dad has kind of become the norm. (My whole wheat pizza crust is coming along by the way!)
I am okay with a fun, casual, flexible night, but I am not okay skipping family dinner. So I started thinking (my biggest strength, and my biggest weakness) and I came up with an alternative plan that allowed us to keep our fun Friday nights but also allowed us to still eat together as a family every day.
Meet Friday breakfast.
As I told you back here, I make breakfast for my kids every morning. The kids and I eat together and sometimes dad joins in, but it is not planned or predictable if he will be there or not. So we asked him to commit to Friday morning breakfast so we could have a meal together that day.
I make the preplanned scrambled eggs with spinach, whole wheat toast, and orange juice. Sometimes we throw in a fruit.
Croft’s Friday morning chore is to set the table since she isn’t rushing to get ready for school.
And we sit down all together at the table with plates, prayers and “please pass”.
I feel good that we get in our family bonding time, but Friday night can still be free and fun and flexible.
It really doesn’t matter what, where or when we eat together as a family. The family meal can be dinner, breakfast, brunch or midnight snack. But it does matter that we eat together!
![I spoke in church today and said the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the greatest act of Charity. I read Moroni 7:45-47 to make my point. But wherever there was the word ‘Charity’ I substituted it out for ‘the Atonement of Jesus Christ.’ See if these scripture verses now have new meaning for you:
“And the Atonement of Jesus Christ suffererth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth in the truth,
[The Atonement of Jesus Christ] beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not the Atonement of Jesus Christ, ye are nothing, for the Atonement of Jesus Christ never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail-
But the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.”
So Easter really reminds us of love. The first and greatest commandment.](https://www.raisinglemons.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png)
We do eat dinner together nearly every day. But Fridays don’t happen for us either and breakfast together is impossible with a husband who leaves at the crack of dawn and kids who leave at all different times. Circumstances are different for every family.
Sounds like you are doing a great job Cheryl! I just wanted to point out that family dinner can actually be family breakfast or snack or lunch. I know eating together every day is not possible for every family, but it was possible for mine when I realized that “family dinner” didn’t have to happen between 6 and 7 PM. Best to you.
Fully agree, we still do our High Lows because of you at dinner. 🙂 I like midnight snack idea…that could be interesting. 🙂