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  • Football vs. Dinner

    I saw this in the Tribune and it got me thinking. How many of you allow the TV to be on (under normal circumstances) during dinnertime and how many have dinnertime as strictly a family time without distractions? If dinner is a no TV time - would you allow for exceptions such as this?

    Football vs. dinner: Something has to give
    Published December 23, 2005


    Dear Amy: I look forward to the holidays as a meaningful time for family and friends, but this year everything's a mess. There's no church service to go to on Christmas Day, even though it is Sunday. The Bears-Packers football game starts at 4 p.m. -- right when we should be sitting down to our big traditional dinner. My husband and I are fighting over whether to allow the television to be on at all. I feel like all my cherished traditions are eroding.

    -- The sad traditionalist

    Dear Sad Traditionalist: First off, simmer down. It's Christmas! I'm going to offer an alternative way to think about this particular day. This Christmas could go down in your family's history as "The Unforgettable Football Christmas."

    Think about it. Your kids and relatives could all look back on Christmas 2005 when, for just one year, Mom threw a real Holiday Hail Mary and tossed tradition to the wind.

    I hope that you did your level best to celebrate the religious component to your holiday at your church's Christmas Eve service (Let's hope that nobody substituted the baby Jesus in your church's creche with a football).

    Now do your best to work around this once-in-a-football-fan's-lifetime event. When you can't work around it, incorporate it into your day in a way that's fun and lively for everyone. (How often are the Bears still in contention at Christmas?)

    You could perhaps change the timing of your meal to coincide with half-time (see chart) -- or time it for before or after the game. Or eat during and play a game -- whenever there's a flag on a play, you could raise your glasses in a toast.

    Come on -- just this once trade in your Christmas apron for a referee's jersey.

    At the end of the evening, you and your family can settle in for sweets and coffee and share your own post-game holiday highlights.
    Game or Dinner?
    "To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are."-Sholem Asch

    "I always turn to the sports page first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures."-Earl Warren

    "I didn't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs."-Nancy Reagan, when asked a political question at a "Just Say No" rally

    "He no play-a da game, he no make-a da rules."-Earl Butz, on the Pope's attitude toward birth control

  • #2
    I used to be very strict about the TV not being on during dinner. I did not care if the president was playing for the Bears and Chippendale dancers were the opposing team - there was no TV during dinner. AND, we sat at the table. Together. One big happy... Since it is just my smaller roomate and I now, I am less strict about it. I do not watch much TV and in order for there to be something on that she HAS to watch, it is something that is not on everynight. Every once in a while, I will make us a "picnic" and we will sit in her room either on her bed or on the floor and watch some toddler movie which usually includes a princess and a prince. Better than having to answer questions like "Where does water come from" during dinner.


    (This was an actual question the child asked me a few weeks ago. When I answered "from the ocean" she asked where the ocean got it from. "From the clouds" I answered. Yep. You guessed it. "Where do the clouds get it from?" This went on until I told her I did not know any more about it and had her call my mother to continue the line of questioning. I can only take so much of this, especially during dinner)
    Last edited by THL; 23 Dec 05,, 23:54.
    "To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are."-Sholem Asch

    "I always turn to the sports page first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures."-Earl Warren

    "I didn't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs."-Nancy Reagan, when asked a political question at a "Just Say No" rally

    "He no play-a da game, he no make-a da rules."-Earl Butz, on the Pope's attitude toward birth control

    Comment


    • #3
      family dinner time?

      That's unheard of at my house.

      Comment


      • #4
        Generally, there's no TV on at our house during dinner time. We'll sit down and do dinner as a family about 5-6 times a week.
        "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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        • #5
          No t.v., and no phone answering at my house during dinner.

          Comment


          • #6
            My dad single-handedly destroyed the family dinner concept by watching TV or making phone calls (or receiving them) during every Dinner. So this is a concept which has now become alien to me. However, I do make it a point to sit at table and have dinner and ignore the TV.
            "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time. "

            "Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed."

            Sir Winston Churchill

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            • #7
              Whoever cooks makes the rules at my house. Generally speaking, you can't have pizza without watching TV.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by giggs88
                family dinner time?

                That's unheard of at my house.
                We rarely didn't have the TV on at my house, and it was even more rare that we all sat together at the same time.
                "The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." G-Man

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                • #9
                  If I was to ever get married or even live with somebody, I'd probably have to break my unbreakable habit of reading while I eat.

                  Me+Food=Book
                  “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by TopHatter
                    If I was to ever get married or even live with somebody, I'd probably have to break my unbreakable habit of reading while I eat.

                    Me+Food=Book
                    I don't see why

                    I kinda like the Colonel's rule of whoever cooks (or orders out) get to decide.
                    "To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are."-Sholem Asch

                    "I always turn to the sports page first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures."-Earl Warren

                    "I didn't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs."-Nancy Reagan, when asked a political question at a "Just Say No" rally

                    "He no play-a da game, he no make-a da rules."-Earl Butz, on the Pope's attitude toward birth control

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by TopHatter
                      Me+Food=Book
                      Definetly.

                      I ALWAYS read when I'm eating. Even if it's a book I've read a eleventy billion times.

                      It just comes naturally.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by giggs88
                        Definetly.

                        I ALWAYS read when I'm eating. Even if it's a book I've read a eleventy billion times.

                        It just comes naturally.
                        Sadly enough, if Kenzie and I are not talking about something, I am usually on my laptop.
                        "To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are."-Sholem Asch

                        "I always turn to the sports page first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures."-Earl Warren

                        "I didn't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs."-Nancy Reagan, when asked a political question at a "Just Say No" rally

                        "He no play-a da game, he no make-a da rules."-Earl Butz, on the Pope's attitude toward birth control

                        Comment

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