Family Feast Day

Today is the start of our monthly Family Feast Days.  This is something I started a few years ago at the urging of my daughters.  We had such a busy schedule with sports and school activities that we were unable to attend many family gatherings.  I have a large family and so does my husband so we talked and decided that we would host a family gathering once a month at our home. 

March family feast 2006

My kids always hear me and my cousin talk about the times when we were growing up and Sunday was a day of gathering for our family.  After church, I remember we would drive to my aunts house for a visit.  I was always so excited because I knew there would be cousins to play with.  The adults would cook food, talk and it was a great time for everyone to just relax, share the week's happenings and laugh.  I always remember lots of laughter!

Grama and Gramps celebrating at March Family Feast 2006

I tried to explain that times are different now.  Life is more rushed and there's not so much time on week-ends to get together every week like before.  We decided that we would host the family gatherings once a month instead of weekly and that we would invite family from both mine and my husbands sides so that they could get to know each other better.  These get togethers were potlucks so that the cooking didn't have to fall on one person.  To make it more interesting and fun, we asked everyone to write down a menu idea and we put all the ideas in a hat and each month we would pull out what the menu would be for the following month.  We had some pretty good food from Italian, Mexican, vegetarian, breakfast, pub foods and BBQ.  Each month it was different and interesting. 

My cousin and my aunt

The beauty of the dinners was that there was no pressure to attend.  Every month there was someone who couldn't come the previous month or sometimes someone new would show up.  We would also buy or make a cake and celebrate the month's birthdays.    I'm not sure why we stopped doing them but I've been urged (strongly) by my kids to start them up again, so today is our first one for this year. 

I'm excited to see everyone gather and laugh.  I love to see my son's face when his cousins show up and it reminds me that the important family values that were instilled in me when I was young, are being passed down to my children.  Hopefully, when they are old enough with their own families, they will know in their heart that nothing is more precious than the gift of a wonderful family bond.  It doesn't matter that we don't talk every day or live in the same county, we should never forget our roots and those that worked so hard to keep our family together.  I hope that my children too, will take the time to connect and bring the family together.