Bring back Sunday dinner

[olive bleu]

as a busy family we eat so many meals on the fly.Also, i think we had not bothered because we did not think our boys would like the usual Sunday dinner fare. But after watching my son eat three plates of my mothers roasted chicken dinner a few weeks ago, we cooked a pot roast this past Sunday with all the trimmings, and all sat down to a big hearty meal with apple pie for dessert. It was a big hit...

So, i am wondering..Did you have big Sunday family dinners growing up? Do you still have them?

 

[Barry]

We usually ate dinner together every night. However, being Jewish, Friday night was the big night / dinner for my family. Even thought we were not very observant I was expected to be there. I do not remember what we did on Sunday nights. We probably went out dinner as a family on some Sunday evenings.

Barry

 

[flat-top]

Growing up in a huge Italian family in the Bronx, Sunday dinner was an EVENT! It always felt like Christmas. Extra tables set up, food was prepared from days before. And we always ate REALLY early..like 2pm.
Wonderful memory.

 

[Tommy Fedora]

Still happening

Luckily, We've always had the big Sunday dinner and still do. Although the family is spread out now we still look forward to getting together on Sunday and enjoying a good meal, even if its just a few of us. Being Italian, its usually pasta with plenty of wine.

 

[Feraud]

In all honesty I do not miss the Sunday dinner. I grew up in a big Italian family and look back and cringe at those days. The fighting, yelling, complaining, racist attitudes, etc. Let us say they are a classic dysfunctional Italian family.
I care for my siblings but am not interested in homemade drama. As adults our "traditional" Italian family are as close as co-workers.
The focus of my life is my small but wonderful family: my wife and son. Who by the way my family despises because my wife is Irish.
You gotta love Italians.

 

[Nathan Flowers]

.

Sunday dinner is still alive and well in the South. I grew up with it, my wife grew up with it, and now we practice it. These days, we usually go to my wife's parents' house, along with her brothers' and sister's families.

Oh, and Dinner for us is at about 1pm. Supper comes at around 6pm, but we usually are too full to eat it on Sundays.

 

[rubyredlocks]

Growing up it was pretty much just me and mom throughout the week,so those big heavy dinners just didn't seem practical.
Our ritual is sunday brunch and still is.Though,every once in while we'd do a small version of the sunday dinner.My mother would make stuffed cornish hens with asparagus.For dessert she'd make homemade chocolate eclairs.
She knows how to make the more southern fare that my great-grandmother and grandmother make,just not how to make it in smaller portions.

 

[Samsa]

When I was younger we had dinner together virtually every night. We were not religious, however, so there was no significance attached to Sunday.

That's changed somewhat, and now Sundays are usually more of an event; my brother, sister, and grandmother all come over most Sundays for dinner.

 

[Grace]

We always have big Sunday dinners at my parents house, and my dear mom always makes home made everything. No instant potatoes, or store bought pies.

Just this past Sunday we also had a big ol' dutch oven pot roast with all the trimmings. We all sit around a drink wine for atleast an hour after the food is gone. It's really a good time! It gives all a chance to reconnect with eachother.

 

[Paisley]

My parents and I (collectively, the Bickersons) had dinner together every night. I didn't like my mother's cooking. Consequently, there's not much to miss. I don't mind eating dinner alone and don't see what is so hard about fixing a meal for one. I fix a meal, put away the leftovers, sit down in the dining room (or in the living room if I'm watching TV), put a napkin in my lap and enjoy a nice meal.

But what I really like is when my best friend and I have a potluck. Wish I were going to her place instead of my parents' for Thanksgiving.

 

[jake_fink]

My family ate dinner together every night. Like Barry, Friday was particularly important especially as we got older and had other things to do.

My father's family was not at all observant, but certain things linger in the imagination and the memory, so certain holidays, certain foods, certain days of the week remain, though all religious or cultural significance has evaporated over time. I couldn't tell you what holiday Hamantashen is associated with, but I know that the bakerys have it in early spring, and so round about the first week of March I get a hankering for Hamantashen. (Okay, I know that it's for Purim, but we never celebrated it and I don't think I knew that until I was well into my teens.)

My wife comes from a family that likes each other less, so there were no family dinners and few family dos. We agreed when our son was born to have dinner together whenever we could. Some of our friends feed their kids, then eat their own dinner, but we don't. All for one and one for all at our house.

Dinner and group meals are important to our socialization. As the author Margaret Visser says in the title of one of her books on the subject, Much Depends on Dinner.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Chicken every Sunday

Neighborhood children made endless fun of me because I called the afternoon meal 'dinner', being from the South. I still blurt out the word dinner sometimes for lunch but then I use crystal, good dishes and place settings for just me, for all meals. Never cloth napkins, that was a Yankee thing. Evening meal is called supper.

 

[Steve]

My grandmother, being a remnant of the Old South aristocracy, had the entire family over to eat almost every Sunday evening. We'd go over to her home (where I now live) at around five in the evening and sit in the living room and talk until the rest of the gang drifted in. Then we'd sit down and eat. And eat. And eat. My grandmother was amazing as a cook. She could breath on a spoon and anything it touched became a masterpiece. I miss her.

 

[jamespowers]

Sunday was always the day the family went out to eat at a nice restaurant. We tried as many as we could every year. I still have matchbooks form all of the different restaurants.
Sundays now are over at my house. Friends come over and we eat and talk about the weeks events.

regards,

J

 

[Elaina]

We ate dinner together every night growing up, but usually the weekends my dad was home so it was more put together. (He was a truck driver, left Moday at 5, came home late Wednesday, came in late Friday). Now, we eat together every day as a family here, usually Saturdays we eat out (Children's mass runs through dinner) and Sundays we go to the Orthodox church and have a traditional greek dinner wether we go or not. Usually we eat at the same time every day: 4:15.

 

[Twitch]

My Grandma, who I lived with, cooked big Sunday meals every week.

 

[Lady Day]

Sunday dinner is still alive and well in the South. I grew up with it, my wife grew up with it, and now we practice it. These days, we usually go to my wife's parents' house, along with her brothers' and sister's families.

Oh, and Dinner for us is at about 1pm. Supper comes at around 6pm, but we usually are too full to eat it on Sundays.

Totally!
My house was the the hub of family goings on, so there were always folks there.
Im from Kentucky, so we generally had a Sun dinner after church, no later than 2pm. Or our church would have a congregational gnash about once a month. Now that my bro and I are out of the nest, my Granny has a lot of fam over all the time for visits and to check on her.

LD

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

My family ate dinner together every night. My mom, dad, brother, and me, sat down together every night, shut the tv off, turned off the lights except those over the table, and chatted. My brother and I never went to church a day in our lives, so Sunday had nothing to do with it, but we did like eating dinner together! As we got older and into more extra-curriculars it wasn't possible to eat together every night, but when we were all home, we all shared the meal.

I guess my family was a dying breed though. I'm only 26 and I know how few families ate together.

 

[Viola]

My family usually eats together most nights of the week, except for when someone must work late.

And we always do Friday dinners as a big thing, still, with the candles and everything.

Almost every sunday used to be with my maternal grandparents with cousins and everything when I was very little, but that didn't last much after my granddad passed away. I was so little I was still using a sippy cup.

Really my grandmother had been doing it just for him, I think, and my uncle and my mother got on each other's nerves if seen ALL the time. lol

Viola

 

[Harp]

Sunday sit down dinner

We always ate together as a family, but Sunday was more
special than any other weekday and the meal more elaborate.
I think it is important for the family to eat together every night
as the sense of the family bond is strengthened.