When I recall the memories of my youth, those that stand out above all others are the memories of some special event or family get together centered around a meal. How can I ever forget coming home after a long day at school to find out that my mom was making her Tuna Casserole (my favorite!) and how something seemingly so simple would totally make my day. Then there were those Saturday night movie rental nights when we would always get a hot and delicious pizza via take out from our favorite local pizza joint. Ahh, I can still taste that Smokey’s Hot Oven Pizza…  On special occasions there were those family get-togethers during the holidays where aunts, uncles, cousins and maybe even a family friend or two would all gather together for a feast that would leave you full for at least a couple of days.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and GRAVY, you know, ALL that good stuff.

     Fast forward to today and the at times hectic world we live in and sometimes it seems families forget the seemingly simple act of sitting down to a dinner together where they enjoy a tasty meal, enjoy each others company, and actually talk to one another.  In our family, like I’m sure others experience, the fact that we are a blended family makes the “traditional” meal time all that more difficult to pull off.  However,  even with our logistically challenged kiddo schedule Nancy and I feel that it is very important to maintain that sense of family connection that happens with all of the family around the dining table.  We both believe that the familiarity and consistency provided by those times is so very valuable to our kids as they grow older and look back at the best times of their youth.

     Because of our philosophy of the importance of having family dinners whenever possible as well as getting together for all sorts of special occasions with extended family whenever we can, we have formed some “traditions” of our own over the past few years.  In this section of our blog we will share a few of those traditions and we hope you share some of your traditions as well.  We will also try to demonstrate that even if you think you don’t have time you can still make some traditions of your own. After all when one of the first things your kiddo says when picking him up from school is… “can we have Tuna Casserole for dinner tonight, dad?“, we must be doing something right huh?

–Mike