Delightful as Well as Delicious!
Almost everyone has memories of sitting around the dinner table for Sunday lunch with family! The food was delicious. (Recipes and suggestions later in this post.) Moms loved the uninterrupted time with family – you know, those people that sleep under your roof. Dads enjoyed it, unless there was a football game or golf on television, and they were anxious to get in the Lay-Z-Boy in front of the tv . . . in which case they usually watched their eyelids more than the game itself. Oh and, the kids. They were eating as fast as possible to go outside and play with friends. (Those were the days before video games, smart phones, etc.)
Where have those days gone? We have allowed the tyranny of the urgent to get in the way. All of those things we have to finish before the new week begins on Monday that we will have forgotten all about by the end of the week, are keeping us from quality time with the people who will be with us and in our hearts forever!
So, because we are “busy” we get fast food and eat in the car, or grab a bite at home and scatter in our different directions. In fact, some families prefer to eat out together, forcing everyone to have some actual face-to-face time without any of the bunch sneaking away early! We are also forgetting the importance and blessing of serving others within the walls of our own homes.
One of the things that my mother has blessed our family with is a love for breakfast casserole…I mean family meal times. In all seriousness, Nana has taught us the importance of gathering together around the table as a family. Through that, we have learned so much about life and love, shared hospitality with our family and friends, and we’ve definitely had some “yummy breakfast casserole” as the youngest grandson says!
We have started a new tradition in our family since many of us are now living in the same community. Once a month, we are doing a family potluck lunch on Sunday after church and we each take turns hosting it in our home. We’ve realized even living in the same town that we have to make time for family.
Let’s get back to it – Sunday lunch with the family!
Harvesting Home’s 6 Essential Steps to Sunday Family Lunch That No One Will Want to Miss!
- Those! Are! Your! People! Love them by spending time with them.
- Get to know them. Especially if you have children or even young adults, around the table, with the speed that life comes at us, we all change so much, so quickly!
- Notice changes – for the good, and others about which you might need to keep close check.
- Even if you have had a stressful week leading up to this, the togetherness can help you all to decompress. If you have ever watched the tv show Blue Bloods, you have seen this family relax from their high-pressure jobs and expectations, and just be themselves. Even in times of disagreement, family comes first.
- Mealtime Prayer – It is good to take turns asking one of the family members to thank the Lord for your family, and for providing the food you are about to eat.
- Communicate with them, not at them. Communication is both talking and listening, sending and receiving.
- Gather the smart phones in a basket away from the table until the mealtime is over!
- Sunday lunch with the family is not the time to go over the upcoming week’s schedule.
- This is not the place for confrontation or time for “airing of grievances” as Frank Costanza would say on Seinfeld.
- If it turns into a contentious atmosphere . . . your family will splinter . . . and hurtful memories will remain.
- Laugh! One of our favorite memories of student ministry was eating lunch with, or in watching from a distance, of one of our youth families that had two teenage daughters in the student ministry. They rotated which family member got to choose lunch that day, at home or out. And while they ate lunch, they would tell jokes. I mean, like they saved up their best jokes from all week and tried them out on each other! They were so much fun to watch.
- Learn to laugh at yourself. It builds a healthy self-esteem.
- Laugh with each other, being careful to not laugh critically at others.
- Reflect on Sunday morning worship together. No, not criticize the preacher, lol; my husband is a pastor, by the way.
- Ask the children what they talked about in Sunday School; it might be something to help them with that bully at school, or that problem they had last week.
- Ask if anyone met someone new or talked to a friend they have not seen in a while.
- Maybe you heard about a need or prayer request that would be good for the family to know.
- Or maybe you might just talk about something you learned in Bible study or worship that your family can put into practice!
- Eat! (I bet you thought I would never get to this part!) Every family has their own traditions and favorites for Sunday lunch. We used to joke about trying to get out of church early enough to beat the neighboring church to the Luby’s Cafeteria, or Casa Elena on FM 1960 in Houston. Oh, I can still taste those cheese puffs! Let me know what some of yours are in the comments below! Here are a few of our Sunday lunch favorites:
- Roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, and corn casserole.
- Chicken pockets, sweet peas (always had to be Le Sueur), carrots, rolls, and CHEESE SAUCE!
- Chicken spaghetti
- Shrimp etouffee
- Crawfish boils – when we lived in the New Orleans area.
- Porcupine meatballs
- BBQ chicken
- Chicken Pot Pie
These are just a few of our home cooked favorites. Don’t forget to comment below with some of your favorites as well! I will include some of our recipes on the blog soon and would love to include yours if you would like to share it with me at: [email protected].
You can get the 5 fast, freezer meal recipes below by signing up for email updates. Some of our family favorites are included in those recipes. If you subscribe for email updates, I will be sharing the recipes for chicken spaghetti and chicken pockets this week with my email subscribers first!
Finally, you know one of the best things about Sunday lunches?
The Sunday naps that follow!
For more recipes and inspiration check out some of these posts:
You have to share the Spicy Chicken Corn Chowder! I still have your handwritten recipe of this (even though I have it memorized), and recently shared it with my daughter-in-love. It’s Zach’s favorite!
I will definitely share that this week! We are supposed to have super cold weather here, so that would be a great one to bring out! Miss you guys!