Some Dinnertime Fun

2007 at 4:20 pm   |   by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under Homemaking Eating and Mealtime

While there are valuable lessons to be learned around the dinner table, there are also wonderful memories to be made as well.  By faithfully eating together as a family, ordinary meals can together become an extraordinary memory. But sometimes it's fun to mix it up a little. When we were young, mom looked for creative ways to turn certain dinners into special memories. We chose our favorites to get your own creative juices flowing. Check these out:

Kristin's picks:

Encouragement Dinner--We took turns encouraging each member of the family over dinner. For dessert, we drew names, and with sugar cookie dough and alphabet cookie cutters, spelled out a godly character quality of the family member whose name we had picked. We were then assigned to do one thing special to honor that individual during the coming week.

Mystery Dinner--Each family member had been assigned a particular aspect of the meal (appetizer, main course, side dish, dessert, etc.) the week before. We could decide what we would make, but we had to keep our dish a secret. So, when we showed up for dinner, we had a surprise of a meal--including peanut butter sandwiches, fancy salad, green bean casserole, shrimp cocktail, and Kool-Aid. To set the mood we had mystery music in the background. The game for that evening was an invigorating round of Clue. We finished off with a mystery movie.

Nicole's picks:

Switching Places Dinner--My mom had us draw the name of another family member and we had to sit in their seat at dinner and behave like them throughout the meal. I remember it being so funny to see my dad imitating my Uncle Grant (who lived with us at the time) and my mom acting silly like Janelle.

We repeated this dinner activity years later when Joshua Harris and Andrew Garfield (who were attending the Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastors College) lived in our basement. It was even more hysterical the second time, especially since Josh gave an Academy Award worthy performance as my dad. He even wore an imitation bald cap!

Backwards Dinner--This meal was inspired by the definitions of the word "backwards": "doing something in the reverse of the usual, the right way," and "toward the past." We, of course, did everything backwards for that particular meal. We had breakfast for dinner. And we had to have fulfilled a "backward assignment" during the day and tell about it at dinner. The options were to wear an article of clothing backwards (one that people could see!), eat our lunch backwards in the presence of a friend, walk backwards around the outside of the house three times (while it was still daytime!), or wear a nametag all day with our name written backwards. Then, at dinner, after we reported on our humiliating "backward assignment," we looked backwards over the past year and recounted one specific example of God's goodness. 

Janelle's picks:

Progressive Dinner--This one works great for the little guys. We ate each course of our dinner in a different room of the house while doing an activity. In the first room we ate hot dogs and put a puzzle together. The Memory Game and deviled eggs came with the second room. It was applesauce and story-time in the third room. We concluded with apple cider and talked about the meaning of each of our names in the last room (To my sisters' delight that is when I discovered that my name means "gift from God").

Silly Dinner--For this meal, we came dressed in "silly" attire. I can still remember running around my house that afternoon trying to put together all of the craziest stuff that I could find. This was right down my alley (probably not one of Kristin's favorites). We all assembled for dinner looking ridiculous--mismatched outfits and crazy hair. We ate our meal starting with dessert (a practice I still enjoy) and ending with our salad.  This was made even more hilarious with Mom having us use the wrong utensils to eat our food. Then we launched into a series of silly activities. We drew a picture in the dark. Mom turned out the lights and gave instructions: "Draw the outline of a house. Put a door on the house.  Put a tree in the yard...." You get the idea. Not exactly art museum material. We then drew names and gave a silly command to the person whose name we drew. The evening ended with a lovely family picture.