This is a great topic for me. I was raised by my Grandmother, a farm girl from Joplin, MO...yes the same grandma who inspired "Nakey" the chicken's name...and we ate together, at the SAME TIME, every night.

When I was little, they were fairly poor, and we ate the same things each night of the week. Sundays were fried chicken in the winter, and grilled hamburgers or hot dogs in the summer. Friday was cheese omelet night. Lots of jello salads in the summer, and soups and stews in the winter. Later, Grandma got into experimenting a bit more with recipes, as they had a bit more to work with. She enjoyed stir frys and made a mean homemade pizza.

The best part of dinner wasn't the food, though. It was being able to catch up with everyone around the table, finding out how their day was. When my Aunt went to the local college, she went through a dictionary phase. She would look up a new word every day, and share it with us at the table. I was in grade school, so it was really educational, but I just thought it was fun!

Now I have 2 kids of my own, and we are probably some of the only people I know who eat together, every night. I am not quite as punctual as grandma, since we have to adjust around music lessons and such, but the four of us sit down to a meal, at home, or out, every night! We talk, the kids share their day, and sometimes we'll do some sort of activity. When the kids were going through a pretty severe bickering phase, we spent a few weeks where we had to pick a different person each night, and share 3 positive character traits about that person. That was probably two or three years ago, but every now and then, the kids will ask to do "that thing where we say something nice about each other."

Life is so crazy busy in the world today, I encourage families to carve out that time, I feel it is so important to nurture our bodies and spirits in this way.