Pass the Tradition
I believe in Sunday family dinners. For as long as I can remember, my wonderfully close family consisting of my older sister, my mom and my dad have sat down together on Sunday evenings for a meal. We usually have dinner together most nights of the week, but there’s something special about sitting around that big wooden table, laughing and sharing bits and pieces of our lives, as the evening sun sets. On Sunday, we share a little bit more, laugh a little harder, and love a little deeper. We are carrying on a tradition that each one of us knows means the world to each other. The disagreements of the dinner table from other nights are long forgotten along with the stresses of daily life, and we can simply enjoy the company of one another.
There is more than a meal being shared around our table. Whether my Daddy is telling his age old story of being in Antarctica with his penguin buddy, or my Mom is reminding us of the silly things Megan and I once did as babies, we are laughing and loving. We savor the sweet taste of our family bond, holding on to it as if that would ever go away; not this family. We may get angry at one another, and we may say the occasional hurtful thing, but on Sunday evening, all is forgiven.
It’s a simpler time at Sunday dinner. There’s no homework to be completed, and no chores to be finished. The hustle and bustle of the world is locked outside, leaving us untouched. For that solid hour, the phone doesn’t ring, voices aren’t raised in anger, the television isn’t on, and nobody rushes to go anywhere. Sunday dinners are a time when family adages are passed on and jokes are told, holding nothing back.
Sure, our humor is a little off, maybe even twisted to some, but we all laugh. Laughing is the language of love, which is passed around the table with the Sunday evening roast. As we gobble down the meal, our stomachs are filling, but our hearts fill just a little faster. The dinner table is where we have both serious talks and silly laughs. Sometimes I like to randomly blurt out movie quotes, throwing my family for a loop, until they catch on and laugh with me. My great-grandmother’s recipe for corn pudding was passed on at the table, keeping it secret just for us.
I believe in Sunday family dinners with my whole heart. I look around the table on Sundays knowing that these people are more than just my family, they are my friends, and there’s no one else I’d rather be dining with, regardless of the fact that we sometimes put the “fun” in “dysfunctional”.
I believe in loving my family wholly and sharing all of who I am with them. I know that no matter where I go a piece of them and our traditions will always be embedded in me.