Friday Family Fun Nights

Do you spend a lot of time with your family?  If you ask this question to others, most people answer that they would like to spend a lot more time with their families, but they just don’t know how. Everyone is always busy, so getting the whole family together at the same time is very difficult.

There is one way that I found that makes getting together with your family a lot easier; you have to schedule the time.  It doesn’t sound very ideal, but it gets the job done.  The results: I get to spend time with my family every week without fail.  My family and I have a standing tradition of Friday night’s as a family night.  The kids can’t go out with their friends, the answering machine gets turned on, and the cell phones are put away so that we can spend quality time together.

What we do on those nights changes depending on our moods: sometimes we watch a movie, some Fridays we go out for a meal, but most days we stay at home and spend relaxing time together.  I make up a huge batch of popcorn, put it into my china Hamilton Lennox serving bowl and we play board games.  We have a lot of favorite board games, and each week someone else gets to pick their favorite to play.  It’s a great way to involve everybody.  At first, the kids complained about having to give up their Friday nights.  Now that they’re used to it, they don’t complain at all.  In fact, I even think that they kind of like it.

Sure, you may be saying that one night a week isn’t really spending a lot of time with your family, and it’s true.  Ideally, I’d like to spend seven days a week watching my children grow up, but with work, their school commitments and keeping up the household it is impossible.  One day per week is definitely better than zero days.