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The Fourth Sunday


alpinejunkie

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Every 4th Sunday of every month My parents and my daughter, my wife and I get together for dinner and to play a board game. We take turns meeting at my parents house or Michele and I have everybody over. Even though we meet at my parents house from time to time our daughter and Michele and I take turns preparing the dinner there. my parents are in their 70s so we try to make it easy on them. This month our daughter will be busy tomorrow so we moved the dinner to Saturday night. We had Chicken Cordon Bleu, cheese tortillini, spinach salad and peach pie with vanilla ice cream. After dinner we played a couple hours of a card game called Skip-Bo. We all had a great time as usual. What a great tradition this is.

 

When I was a little boy. My dads mom would have everybody over for a huge traditional Italian dinner every Sunday after Mass. Growing up it was just something that we did. Now I realize what a labor of love and sacrifice it was for my Grandma and Papa to feed 20 or more relatives every week. She would start shopping and preparing food on Thursday for Sunday dinner. That does not even begin to take into consideration the financial part of it for my grandparents.

 

There is a church at the end of our block that the pastor puts different sayings on a sign out front. This week it says "a good career does not make a good life". My grandfather was a janitor and my grandmother worked on an assembly line making luggage. But they had the best life of any people I know.

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Wow, 20 people for Sunday dinner! I grew up in an area where the population was mostly from Europe and the wonderful smells that came out of every house as we walked home from church was just a part of my Sunday growing up. I had friends in a lot of the houses and if the "momma" walked towards me with a plate I said: "yes, please" no matter what it was. So I ate food I've never heard the name of.

 

Glad you are in part following on this wonderful "family dinner" tradition. It happens in too few homes these days. When I am 70 I hope my family love me enough to bring dinner occasionally.

 

Nice to be able to read your blogs again.

 

Sue.

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hey AJ:

 

That'such a great tradition. I think I will try to adopt in our family. Though our family meets very often, but having this kind of tradition will enforce our American born kids to follow it too. I enjoy reading your blogs again.

 

Asha

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One thing that was so pleasing to me and my wife is that it was our 25 year old daughters idea that we start this. Michele and I look back fondly on the days when family gatherings were highlights of our youth and have felt like the younger generations had no use for that.

 

Sue, I can just close my eyes and imagine the wonderful time you wrote about. What a wonderful mental vacation.

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AJ: when I was growing up every Sunday was spent at my Dad's dad house for Sunday dinner. Dad was from a small, but very traditional Italian family. What I remember also was the neighborhood. Everyone was close and had large families. But if a neighbor said jump, you'd better say how high?-lol. When the twins were born, my Mom had to stay in the hospital (Rh), but the twins came home. Our neighbors made dinner for the seven of us every night until Mom returned home. Our kids have all heard these stories ad nauseum, but somehow they have made a difference. My niece, who recently had a baby girl (she's gorgeous needless to say) insists on dinner at my brother's house every Saturday. We all bring something, but the point is the family. Kudos to your daughter and to you and your wife for having such an incredible child.

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