Happy start to the new week friends 🥰💕.

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What a loving topic from #hiveleaners community to kick start off the week. Everything that has to do with family is one that brings interest and lots of commitments because many believes family is everything.

With this topic “Family Dinner”, my mind went back to how my siblings and I use to eat together while we were growing up. Remembering those past years brings me good memories because those are the years that left us still united up until now, although ‘my senior brother siblings are resting with the Lord already in heaven.

Family dinner 🥘 was what my mother values so much while we were growing up, making sure we start cooking early once its evening which makes it easy enough by knowing what to cook once lunch 🥙 is over. Although most times lunch was not usually served together due to how school 🏫 for the children and work hours for parents makes it impossible until weekends. But dinner is what we make sure to eat together because of how my parents cherished the bond.

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My mother will immediately dish out the food according to everyone’s plate starting with that of my father when he is not away for business trip, then my seniors, two of my brothers, my senior sister before mine and then my junior sister who is the last among the six siblings. She shares the food according to who is the senior, trying to avoid the trouble of who will choose first, creating and instilling respect in us and laying down bond of unity. And we will all sit in the living room to eat together. And after dinner, we have this time of discussing as family. How our day was, any pending matters or any new subject from any one of u. My junior sister will gather all the plats for washing. And this system continued in my home until my senior brothers and sister left for college.

Then I was left with my parents and junior sister whom I share so much bond with. And because we were already grown, we took over the kitchen from our mother, (who has also gone to rest with the Lord). We will cook dinner and serve our parents first before taking ours. And most times, we will have leftovers because we were fewer now. But leftovers were always helpful because it helps with breakfast 🍳

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And now as a parent, I don’t joke with family dinner because of the way I was brought up. In fact I always make sure dinner 🥘 is ready before 7:00 🕖 pm. And because of my kind of work that involves different time schedules, I make sure to cook over the weekend in large quantity especially the cherry tomatoes stew 🍲, soup 🥣 and sauce which I store in the refrigerator. This indeed makes it lots easier to just get home, boil some rice 🍚, spaghetti 🍝, potatoes 🥔 or stir some semolina to serve . Once food is ready, my kids helps me move them to the dinning table , then we get seated. Its always amazing to eat together with my family especially during the weekends when the children visits home from college. And because we do not have extended family members staying with us, my family always look forward to dinner time because its a time to also enjoy each others company, creating value of being a family and bringing memories that we will keep for many years.

I missed my mother so much because my girls shared a very serious bond with her when she use visits us before she went to rest . Serving family dinner then use to be very dramatic because they will want to eat in the same plate with my mom, and how funny, I will be forced to go to the kitchen more then three times to keep dishing more food for them eating together. And worst being that they want the food dished little by little. Haha 😆. That is how they enjoy 😊 it then. And it makes me feel so good. What a memory this prompt is bringing me.

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Family dinner is like thanksgiving that is an old tradition or culture to many of us because it left an everlasting reflection in us which we will always go back to. Eating together as family is not just about the food we serve and enjoy but all about the coming together as family as we seat and eat in one room, uniting us through the valuable times that brought so much opportunities for us to share as one family. The laughters, decisions, learning from each other and respecting one another which creates so much unity and bond.

However, many in this generation has valued family dinner more than in the past years seeing how important family is and why we should continue to leave memories with our children because the times are becoming so challenging. Family dinner brings lots of unity and bonds that is not easily sourced through other avenues. We should all continue to make it an unforgettable moments as we continue the chase for memories.

This is my entry to the #hivelearners featured content of week 141, edition 01 tagged “Family Dinner”.

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