Bringing the Family Back Together Around The Dinner Table
Growing up we didn’t eat meals around a table every night. In fact I don’t think we really used the dining table apart from on special occasions. Reasons for this included my parents both worked long hours, my older brother and younger sister were either working or at school / college and I was either at uni until late or not home at all plus my youngest brother (he’s 14 years younger than me) would have to eat earlier than us all as he had an early bedtime. The times we did mange to eat around the table together were great as we were all sat down at the same time – we’d have a laugh and a joke together and we’d all chat about nonsense playing bored games afterwards.
Furniture Choice recently carried out a survey to find out about Britain’s dining habits. The results showed 79 percent of the UK adults asked to take part in the survey think it’s important to sit down to a meal together, 36 percent sit on the sofa to eat their meals and 58 percent are more likely to watch TV whilst eating with others. Furniture Choice are aiming to bring the family back together around the dinner table. They asked us and a number of other bloggers to get involved. We kind of fall into the sitting on the sofa and watching TV together or us adults eating after the boys as Matthew tends to work late on a night.
To bring the family together around the table, I decided to cook the boys favourite dinner – roast chicken, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, sweetcorn and gravy. This is a guaranteed meal that ends with cleared plates. For dessert we had mint choc chip ice cream and chocolate brownies another of the boys favourites.
On the days when I know Matthew will be finishing early or not working we are definitely going to try and sit down together as a family more. On the nights when he is working late I have decided that I will have my dinner at the same time as the boys and sit down with them. I’m hoping this will give us time as a family to talk about our day as when I normally ask the boys what they have done it’s normally “nothing” or “I cant remember”. We are really looking forward to our Christmas Dinner this year, although we’re not having it at home it is going to a huge family affair at Matthew’s brother’s house. Here we are going to spend the whole day and plan on having a massive dinner followed by pudding and then later a buffet tea. In between we are going to play lots of board games with the boys… It’s going to be a great day.
