Family Dinner

Mostly at table, though there was a lot of in front of the TV. Mostly the gf and I watch in front of the TV but we try to reserve at least a handful of nights per month at the dining table with good china, flatware, napkins, etc...

Always at a table, NEVER in front of the TV. My parents could never imagine it. Still the case whenever I visit home, and I'm glad of it. No grace said to my remembrance, served out salad usually but everything else was on the plate to start with.

It would change with every marriage/divorce/remarriage/change of location/whatever. Usually involved a table and no TV.

Norman Rockwell: mom cooked, plates and bowls of food went in the middle of the table for helping yourself, everyone sat down together every night and a grace was alway said or sung. Kids did the dishes in rotating shifts of week on/week off; if it was my turn, clean-up could take hours while I melted wax and burned toothpicks in the sink.

Nice. I'm considering moving in with someone and neither of us own tables, eating in front of the TV (computer in my case - yeesh) or on the floor. But I'd like to get back into eating the sort of family style dinners I did when I was a kid.

We had a non-denominational grace* and had to pass everything around. I think the passing thing is flawed, since it often resulted in a traffic jam of food at someone's place.

*"for what we are about to receive may we be truly grateful"

table!

Now I eat alone almost always, usu while reading or watching a movie (or at my desk at work) but that's mostly because I'm single and my household is not like a family unit. I like communal meals but I like reading too.

I don't feel like my eating habits are any sort of sign of the decline of polite society or family bonds or anything. Just life.

My mom had my brother and I at the dinner table for a home cooked meal almost every night with the TV off right up until I left for college, when my dad was there and after the divorce and after she got remarried. By high school some of my friends had dinner at my house more often than at their own house.

I like the idea of food being something to enjoy slowly and with good conversation but I think it's also okay to just be tired and hungry and want to sit down and flip through cable channels until you find "Dirty Jobs" or something. Shoot.

Now my wife & I generally take turns handling dinner the nights we're both home, with her doing it more often since she likes cooking and is generally better at it and me having the responsibility to buy dinner if we're both too lazy or tired to cook. (xpost)

did you retain your dining habits?

Oh Lord no. The internet has literally influnced my diet towards more bowl-based meals, like rice or noodles, just cause it's easier to eat in front of the computer.

(and cereal, duh!)

I ate government cheese at my mother's house and alternated Arby's, Hardee's & Rice-a-roni at my dad's. I remember watching classic star trek with my dad, pounding cases of mandarin orange flavor Slice and eating tombstone pizza cooked in a toaster oven. If I cooked myself food it would maybe be a toasted bagel stuffed with baked beans and a hot dog. My mom could burn creamed corn in the most horrific ways and her cookies had more baking soda than flour. Sometimes in the government assistance food bags there would be weird stuff. We got a beef tongue once which sat in the freezer for like a year before our saint bernard somehow acquired it and stuffed it between the couch cushions.

*"for what we are about to receive may we be truly grateful"

lol we said this too. tho ever since my mom moved to the westest of west coasts several years ago, she's switched to something way more hippie flakes but hey it works

pretty much always had dinner at the table, whether at mom's or dad's. as i recall bros and i even had dinner at the table when mom wasn't home o_O tho we only said grace in a teenage joking way lol before putting random food bits into each other's milk when guard was down

for a long time i ate at my desk with computer on :/
now i eat on the couch in front of the coffee table (no tv but sometimes computer or radio)
i am hoping this situation changes before the inevitable slide into eating off a paper towel on the floor

i do no longer have a desk tho! and i put legs onto this round table top i have but i need to further stabilize them b/c the table is not very solid and who really wants to eat off a wobbly table, not me

always around the table.

except for friday nights, which were pizza and a movie nights! we'd call pizza hut, get one meat lovers and one cheese lovers and watch a video. something like blue skies again, transylvania 6-5000, max dugan's coming home or the like. ahhh the memories.

On abolishing the family.

https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/its-time-to-abolish-the-family/

Feel like this thread needs some Dangerous Girls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-0fxgSEcQk