An ordinary Saturday night...

I love our family Saturday evening rituals. Saturday nights, to me, always have been and always will be the epitome of family time.

What are we doing? The same thing we do every Saturday night. We have pizzas in the oven and the Pepsi and milk is chilling. We have watched the Seattle Seahawks kick the New Orleans Saints and take the silly smile off stupid Drew Brees' face. Hubbawhat?! We will have a long dinner at the family dinner table where inevitably someone will get into trouble for belching/ farting inappropriately and everyone except me will burst into giddy laughter. Jokes will be told that make very little sense and yet we will all laugh. Somebody will get teased for spilling something.

Olivia is currently off at a sleepover but if she were here she'd be dancing around and singing to the ipod that is blaring AC/DC in the kitchen. Scott is making dinner. Georgia (or Little Miss Science) is explaining all about her new favourite show "River Monsters". Her current lecture is recapping this week's episode about giant fresh water river sting rays that live somewhere in Asia. (The Discovery Channel is a wondrous thing.) Finn is playing on the ipad- either playing Cut the Rope or Plants vs. Zombies. Margaret is sitting on the back of the couch trying to ignore all of us and Howard is on patrol and getting into trouble from Scott for being on the counters. I am blogging and contemplating knitting the evening away. Right now not one of us are doing the same thing but we are all sitting the same room and doing our own thing. We might play a game later. We might not.

All very boring and normal family stuff- hardly blog worthy when it comes down to it- but it is my firm belief that it is times like this that define a family. There are as many different types of family rituals as there are different types of families but each one has their own thing. Every family has something that unites them. It could be a sporting team or activity or even a common interest. Our family enjoys doing nothing- together. (We are simple folks.)

One of my fondest memories growing up was our family Saturday night supper. Most Saturday nights Dad would make hamburgers and homemade french fries. Heather and I would be watching Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner in the living room. Mom would maybe be reading while we watched TV and Dad puttered over dinner. Our biggest decision would be whether we'd do "the next step" to the hamburger buns. (That means whether they would be buttered and grilled or left natural and unheated.) I can't remember what we talked about beyond the buns. I really can't even remember what we did after dinner. I can't remember one specific evening over another but what I can tell you is that the smell of frying hamburgers is what Saturday nights smell like in my mind. Good times.

I know that it will these Saturday nights- of doing nothing together- that I will long for when the kids are grown up and perhaps have homes and families of their own. But possibly, just as Scott and I continued and altered my family's Saturday night supper tradition, it will continue with my kids and into their future families. It won't be exactly the same as when they grew up, and it shouldn't be but it will be perfect for them.

What were your favourite family rituals growing up? Did you bring any of these family rituals into your family?