Sunday Family Dinner

One of the things we have tried to establish in our house since Pop Tart joined us is the family dinner. Even before she came, we tried to have a once a week whole house dinner with roomie J. But especially once Pop Tart came, we started eating dinner at the table, all of us together, every night. It is a habit that has stuck.

I am not saying that we are perfect at this. Some nights one of us is sick and gets brought dinner in our bedroom. Occasionally we are doing something where we eat dinner on TV trays in the living room. But for the most part, dinner is a family event, every night, with no phones or tablets or books. Just us, having to look at one another and talk about our days.

This fall, we decided to expand on that tradition. At our old house, we lived quite close to a few good friends, and yet, we never saw them. Everyone was busy, we are home bodies, etc. The excuses lined up. With the move to the new house, we were near more friends, though none quite as close as the previous people. And then, two of our very good friends (I have been friends with one of them since undergrad) moved about a mile away from us. And we saw an opportunity.

Now, we have Sunday Family Dinner, every Sunday night. These close friends join us, every week. This is the default. The occasional exception occurs – people are out of town, our anniversary fell on a Sunday this year, that time of thing. But default is, we see these friends, we have dinner with them, every Sunday night. And it is a thing of beauty.

Sunday evening can often seem difficult. It is the end of the weekend. People have to go back to work and school the next day. It can be hard to look forward to Sunday night. But now, every week, we do.

We have invited other friends to join us. In fact, a couple of the people we used to live really close to have driven up the past two weekends to join us.

On some level, this is even better than having friends over at the holidays. There are no big expectations. We have whatever someone is willing to make – fried rice, chili, soup. There is no production, no big deal. People simply show up when they are ready to, and leave when they are ready to.

We take the opportunity to make plans with each other, to ask favors, to make the “small talk” that is not really small, when you actually are interested in how your friends are doing, what their week was like, and what plans they have coming up.

It is a moment of connection with people who matter to us. It is the perfect end to the weekend and start to the week. It is a tradition I am glad we have started, and I hope we can maintain for years to come.