Food is a very important part of our lives. It is a requirement for life. Many of our fondest memories involve food or events with food. Whether it is fall parties, Thanksgiving dinner, Fourth of July picnics or just a weekend cook out, food is a very integral part of each memorable event. Often the food goes beyond what we would normally serve for a family dinner with either more food, fancier recipes, or just family favorite food reserved for that event. But does that mean that just the day to day meals should not be just as important?
You and your family are probably the most important things in your life. Why not celebrate that every day? A full blown feast is not necessary for a celebration. Food and time are the only major requirements. What makes it a celebration is the company and the importance put on the food. Making just an ordinary day into a celebration of life and family does not require all day in the kitchen. With the popularity of the quick and easy recipes, a wonderful dinner can be on the table in 30 minutes or less.
The first step in making a dinner time important is planning. If you come in from work tired and have nothing at all planned for dinner, it is difficult to make the meal a special event. If you have planned out meals for the week, have all the ingredients on hand, and did as much of the prep work ahead of time as possible, then you will less apt to run through the drive thru on the way home from work. Even reaching for the phone to call for delivery will be less tempting.
After you have the meals planned, the shopping done, and all the prep work possible done ahead of time, think of how you can make each meal a little more special. If you have good china, bring it out. It may shock your family at first if you only use the good dishes, silverware, and crystal on important family occasions. In fact, they may try to figure out what the special event is that they forgot about. Think of how special they will feel when you let them know that spending time with them is worthy of the good dishes.
Stop on the way home and buy a bouquet of flowers. Fresh flowers bring life to the table and the room. Buy index cards to use to create personal seating cards to place on the table. Serve the food on the plates and have the plates on the table as the family comes into the room. Have the family all take their seats, then bring in already served plates of food. Invite a friend for dinner. Eat by candlelight. Have music playing softly in the background. In other words, shake things up a bit. Try something different. If it is not a daily experience, then your family will be able to appreciate your extra efforts.
If dinner is always followed by a fight over who will wash the dishes, use disposable dinnerware. True it is not cost effective or even good for our planet to use disposable every night, but once a month or so might be a welcomed night off for your family. Instead of fighting over who is going to load the dishwasher or wash the dishes, you can gather for a family game or movie night.
Making an everyday meal special does not have to be difficult or time consuming. Plan ahead, think outside of the box, and remember that the most important part of dinner is time with those that are special in your life. Taking the extra effort to show them how special they are to you is well worth an extra few minutes here and there. Dinner does not have to be a holiday meal to be special when you have good food, family and friends, and love, any meal served any day of the week can be special.
