How To Restore Your Love Of Family Mealtimes

 

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Sharing a meal with your loved ones is an activity that should be cherished but often goes undervalued. If you have fallen into this trap, now is the time to once again make it the magical moment it should be. 

Small steps can bring significant steps. Here are the ingredients that will help you find the recipe for success.

Make it an occasion

If your family members currently eat in different rooms or at varying times of the day, this is a major issue. Your first job, then, is to put this right by restoring the sense of occasion. Setting the dining table with tablecloths, napkin rings and placeholders will work wonders. Consider lovely furniture. Eating together is one thing, but you also want to avoid distractions like television. A little music is fine, but you want to use this opportunity to have family conversations. You will find that it brings you closer together. 

Cook together

Rather than focusing solely on the meal, you also focus on cooking together. You won’t want to do this for every meal, but it should play a regular role. For families, kid-friendly cooking can include baking pizzas or making tacos. Meanwhile, couples can use this opportunity to make a romantic meal. When teamed with the right wine, your lunch or evening meal will become a special part of the day. It can also serve as the perfect way to begin a movie night either as a couple or a family.

Image - Pixabay (CC0)

Include treats

Sharing a meal with loved ones is an amazing thing, but the personal experience should be a positive one too. Therefore, you need to treat the taste buds. Your desserts and sweets at the end of the meal are the best candidates. Healthy snacks

 and treats will allow you to enjoy tasty foods without any major guilt. As a parent, preventing obesity and diabetes in your child provides an extra incentive for taking this route. Still, if the food isn’t enjoyable, the mealtime will suffer.

Get outside

Visiting restaurants isn’t quite the same as it was before the pandemic. Likewise, you have probably spent more time indoors than you’d like. Therefore, taking your meals outside into the garden can be one of the smartest things you’ll ever do. A BBQ stove or garden pizza oven will open the door to afternoons and evenings of fun. Sitting out on the deck with the fresh air and some tasty treats will transform your approach to mealtimes. It’s also the perfect setting for hosting friends.

Think about cleaning

Cooking meals can be a lot of fun. Sadly, cleaning up at the end of a meal is far less enjoyable. Thankfully, the market is now blessed with a host of appliances and tools to make cleaning duties a lot easier. Meanwhile, using slow cookers and other easy cooking tools can aid the cause further. When you know that you are not going to spend the next hour cleaning, your family mealtimes are even sweeter. The kids can help out with the remaining cleaning duties to earn their pocket money.

You don’t need every mealtime to feel special to enjoy the sweet taste of success. But you should make it a regular feature of your family routines. You’ve got this.