Seeking the Sabbath: Making the Lord's Day Special

I have fond memories of Sundays when I was growing up. We usually had a family dinner with the extended family and it was always the same meal. Pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and rolls or homemade bread with jam. There were other things from time to time (like fruit salad for Uncle T before my grandpa died), but the main portion of the meal was always the same. We had a laid back day that consisted of church, some reading or study time, time with family, and our large dinner. I remember at my dad's house we were only allowed to watch movies about Christ, nothing secular. The day was set apart, made to be something special.

While I think that perhaps a couple of these things were done in my family for the wrong reasons and done in a legalistic way, I believe that they were still a good idea. It is a good thing to attempt to protect the sabbath, and I want my children to observe this day when they are gone from my home and have grown a family of their own. If I don't go about presenting the reasons to them in the right way, that won't happen. I never want any part of our faith to become a legalistic thing for them. I intend to attempt to teach them the reason we make the choices we do in our actions and give them traditions that they can follow later in life as a choice to honor God, not "because they are suppose to".

I just wanted to share a couple things that we have been adding to our Sundays to make them special.

First, we are doing the dinner that I had as a child in our home. We make the meal together and serve it at the table family style instead of our usual plated meals. I want it to look nicer in presentation than our normal meals. It was so cute to watch Curly and Handsome peeling potatoes together and then drying dishes as I washed them after the meal. It could very well become a special memory for her one day.

Second, we have dessert. We don't usually have dessert at our house. Sometimes the adults will have ice cream after the kids are in bed or something like that, but we don't do it as a family after dinner. Just a little something extra.

Third, we are doing our family Bible story time in the living room. Usually we do this in Curly's room as we are putting her to bed. I think that doing it in the living room gives it more importance and sets it apart from just being part of her bedtime routine.

These are just a few things that we are doing to create a lasting memory and special feeling on the Lord's day. I enthusiastically welcome any memories of Sunday that you have from your past, or that you have tried to create with your children in the comments section. It's nice to have new ideas from other families.

Side note: Handsome was supposed to work today again. It somehow worked out that he didn't have to be there today. Just thought I would throw that in there after last week's post...