The Other Family Table

I think that those commercials that you see (on Nickelodeon?) about “The Family Table” encouraging families to sit down and eat a meal together, are great. People get so busy between work and school and children’s commitments – Scouts, soccer, dance, karate – sometimes family dinners might fall by the wayside. My husband works a rotating schedule and some nights he works late. When he is home, we always sit down as a family to eat together, and when he is working, the girls and I sit down to eat together.

We just recently acquired another type of “family table” – a coffee table from Gramby and Grandpa. It has taken the place of the train table (we moved that down to the family / play room) and I never thought that I really needed a coffee table, but now that we have it we use it all the time! Last night I sat on the floor with my littlest girlie and we (I) put together puzzles – she likes Mommy to put them together until we get to the last piece, and then she likes to finish them! We have started “family game night” where we gather once a week around the table and play a board game as a family. We love games and have an armoire full of them. We love having friends over for game night, and actually, having the coffee table will make that even easier instead of having the games on the floor.

Whatever table you use – coffee, dining, kitchen or even the floor! – try to take even an hour during the week to gather with your family and do something fun together. Even if you don’t own any games you can easily have the kids write down the names of their favorite books, movies, characters, pets and throw the papers into a bowl to pick out for a quick game of charades. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do something fun together as a family!