How to Share at Family Dinners
… both food and food for thought!
My family has been doing something really cool lately. We’ve been playing with The Meal Box… “fun questions and family faith tips to get mealtime conversations cookin’.” Here, have a listen to one question we did this week (4:14 min.)
I want to invite you to join yet another conversation!!! 
Actually, the authors of The Meal Box are inviting you. I’ll let Bret speak for himself!
Good morning!
I’m Bret Nicholaus, and I have to confess that I have an unusual passion: I just LOVE asking questions that help family members and friends learn fun and fascinating things about each other. I’ve been writing question books for the last 16 years, so this “interest” is nothing new. What IS new to me is the opportunity to interact with all of you via MyMommymanual.com. I can’t wait to get started and see where the questions—and ensuing conversations—lead.
Joining me will be Tom McGrath, who has written several books on family spirituality. Recently, Tom and I co-created The Meal Box: Fun Questions and Family Faith Tips to Get Mealtime Conversations Cookin’. Tom and I both believe that mealtime affords one of the best opportunities to help families grow in their love for one another and in their spiritual life—and a helpful way to do that is to begin with a FUN question!
So let’s get started with a question from The Meal Box. Send in your answers and we’ll get the conversation going!
If you could change one thing about the way your favorite holiday is celebrated, what would you change?
As you can tell from our audio, The Meal Box is a way that I connect with my kids. And I appreciate that fact that we talk over the meal I’ve prepared rather than just rushing off to the next activity. That in itself is worth it’s retail price of $9.95. Want to start some conversations around your dinner table?
You can win The Meal Box FREE by leaving a comment or audio comment below.
Loyola Press is also offering 30% off The Meal Box for My Mommy Manual readers from 6/22 through 6/20. Please type in “mealbox” as the promotional code on their website.
The Audio was so cute. The kids are getting so big!
And an answer to the “holiday” question. Well, if I were being selfish, I’d say that my husband, son and I would spend every holiday with my family, instead of having to switch on and off. Which really is my truthful answer. But I suppose I could wish that his family (which only consists of his Mom and Dad) would come to my family’s home for holidays. They would get to experience something they have never had in their life…a normal, happy, joyful family that loves to get together for any occasion, especially holidays.
Questions are the best way to get to know people– and we shouldn’t forget getting to know our own children! Love this idea as a way to spark dialogue and meaningful conversation at dinner.
Play Audio Comment
This is great! We have also been using another kind of game at our dinner table but generally our table time is pretty rough these days with active 5 and 3 yr-olds. I will have to give this a shot!
Love the idea of the Meal Box, we did something similar when we had a Mother/Daughter luncheon together and it really got the conversation flowing. Love that there’s a spirituality aspect to these questions…even better!
If I could change one thing about how we celebrate the holidays, it would be to find a way to get my whole extended family (all great Italian cooks who always make way too much for the amount of people we have to feed) to each make an extra dish that we could deliver to Saint Vincent’s for their Christmas dinner. To share all the fabulous food with those who have less to fill their bellies. One year when we celebrated Thanksgiving at one of their local restaurants which was closed to the public so that our whole family could be there together, a woman and her son came to the door, saw the “closed for private party” sign and started to walk away…my grandpa saw them, unlocked the door and invited them in to share our dinner. It was their first Thanksgiving without her husband/father to her son. It was the best holiday I ever experienced, knowing they had a meal and were surrounded by laughter and togetherness. It’s one of the things about my grandpa that I am truly grateful for, he is the epitomy of kindness and love, and has always been about helping others.
Thank you for your comments, ladies. My 5 year old does like it too. His answer to what book would you dive in if you could was Mickey Mouse!
Jen, thanks for sharing that story. So inspiring. What a big heart!!!
Family traditions are key to cohesiveness. My fondest memories are all around family gatherings and the traditions surrounding those.
For me, the thing I’d change is the rules on eating. It’s a strong tradition on my side of the family tree, that if you’ve invited over, there will likely be food. If there is food, you’re expected to eat.
What I’d like to see happen is that the family clearly announces whether food will be served or not, and then stop worrying if folks don’t want to eat.
I know the tradition stems from times where food was hard to come by, at times living at the generosity of others to drop things off for us. That said, we don’t live in those times anymore. Heck, I’m too well fed.
Thanks for sharing this concept and question.
If I could change one thing, it would be that the whole day, or at least a major block of time, was spent without the TV on.
The time we all have together is limited, both in the short and long term. Why should we make a fuss to spend time together only to use half or more of our attention to watch TV instead of, you know, actually interacting with each other? If I wanted to watch TV, I would have stayed at home.
Hey there—
I love this! Great idea!
As a single mom, it’s always been important to keep with the family dinner theme…every single night. We all eat together and we talk a LOT. We have a gratitude box that we made which is really a fun thing to get conversation going. We also have “topic Thursdays” where someone picks a topic the night before and we all have to share what we learned at Thursday’s dinner.
Great post!
Love THIS!!!
Play Audio Comment
I love the idea! And your audio clip is so cute!
The Meal box sounds like Ice Breakers for the Ice Broken, if you know what I mean — familiarity breeds contempt sometimes and the (bad) dynamics shows up at family dinners. LOL. That said, if I could change the way my favorite holidays are celebrated, it would be that there’s an unspoken rule: Less Drama. I don’t get that people just don’t want to relax and enjoy each other’s company when we all get together. I’ve grown up in an environment where I don’t stress about that or I have to imagine what a particular dinner will bring to the table, conversation-wise. Or what scene it would be. Until recently, I never realized how complicated it is for some families.
I really like the Mealbox concept — it’s a terrific idea.
What I’d like to see is more of us in my family actually make the effort to get together for holidays.
We’re so busy and scattered in so many directions that we don’t often get together as a family for holidays. I didn’t appreciate the importance of family rituals til I got older and lived further away from everyone. Now I miss them…
Here’s another Meal Box card, read by “Faith!” http://www.mobypicture.com/user/RiaSharon/view/295744
Thanks for your responses, friends! Love reading them all and amazingly, can relate to a lot of them too!
Greetings! I’m Tom McGrath, one of the co-crafters of The Meal Box. Thanks for the warm welcome to this wonderful blog.
To answer Bret’s question: One of the smartest things Kathleen and I did when we were married only a month was to host Thanksgiving at our home for both sides of our family. I HATE split-shift holidays where you’re running from place to place. So we solved it by having everyone over. Some years we have dozens, some years it’s a smaller group, but it’s always a day of connection, fun, and lots of great conversation. I truly believe those conversations did more for my daughters as they reached their teenage years than all the preaching I ever did. They learned how to be good from the very, very good people at the table who loved them into the family circle. By the way, next Thanksgiving makes it 34 years ina row.
34 years. That’s impressive! When I was married, thanksgiving was our holiday too… it was a good one, allowed us to focus on being grateful. I was always honored to host it.
But what does that mean, “learned how to be good?” I have to admit, that there is a trigger there for me.
I’m impressed with all the wisdom expressed already about the importance of good conversation during the family meal (and, to me, family is whoever shows up at dinnertime!). I especially loved the story about welcoming the mom and son to Thanksgiving dinner, Jen. We all long for connection and mealtimes offer great opportunities to connect. It’s a shame people so often miss those opportunities to know and be known, appreciate and be appreciated, give and get support through the highs and lows of the day.
That’s why Bret and I came up with The Meal Box idea–so we can bring fun back to the family meal.
Good catch, Practical Mommy. My typing got ahead of my thinking. Upon reflection, what I meant was, “learned/experienced their own inherent goodness.” I believe we sometimes need a mirror to see our own goodness, and that mirror is often the eyes of family and friends who see us and reflect back to us the goodness they see. Does that make more sense?
Good morning, everyone!
My delayed train arrived finally and I am here and ready to talk! Looking forward to today, and we’ll have lots of fun with fun questions, your great answers, and discussions that result from the answers you give.
Thanks for letting me join all of you blogging today!!
Bret Nicholaus
Yes, I agree that meaningful conversation is the basis for 1) KNOWING each other and 2) BEING present for each other. What I like about The Meal Box is that it provides some material for discussion but I PERCEIVE it to be open… there is no EXPECTATION or judgment about your answer.
The interesting thing about family dynamics sometimes, is that there can be inherent expectation about who you are SUPPOSED to be rather than meeting your children/parents where they ARE.
I sense this also in the answers to the question: what you would change about the holiday.
Morgan,
How funny that you mention The Book of Questions! Having written many question books over the years, I am quite familiar with that book. As you can imagine, our books (such as The Conversation Piece) have always had the “clean” questions, as we want to reach families with our conversation starters. From the beginning, I have believed what you said: That the best way to get to know our kids is through questions. You gotta love the imagination that kids put into their answers!
Thanks for your kind comments about The Meal Box!
Bret
Good morning, Heidi and Jen. Glad to have you in the discussion this morning!
Jen, thanks for sharing the story about your grandpa–wonderful story, and what a great example he was!
Bret
my favorite part of all of this is the tradition element. as an infant massage instructor, i see how from even days old, kids respond to RITUAL. they like knowing whats coming net ;p just think of when a 5 yo walks into a Kindergarten room. everything is set up for them to be known. you do art then freetime then always have snack this way and then music etc. this gives them peace of mind and security in their environment and frees them up to be themselves, to feel safe and to play and learn…cause we learn when we play!!!
so taking the Meal Box and working it into say Sat night dinners with the family is my intention. we are looking at starting a family meeting type thing on sundays at the end of summer where we all get together and talk and this might be a fun thing to work into this as well. so many ways this could be worked into family RITUAL ;p and speaking for someone that ritual doesn’t necessarily come easy for (even though i honor it immensely for the value it offers kids) it is helpful for me to have this to go to week afte week to create this with my kids. reilly and morgan are just 6 and 8 and still sharing freely and openly with their dad and i…a tradition i hope will ALWAYS BE!!!
thanks for all the great thoughts above, and to the creators of this loving ritual Bret and Tom.
Cheers!!!
question, bret, how do you recommend parents manage their feelings/words if what their child says within playing the Meal Box game is confronting to them? Let’s say the child is a tween or teen? Thank you, I am very interested. ;p
Todd,
I can totally relate to your comment about being expected to eat. I come from a background where my mom is 100% Swedish. If you know anything about Swedes, they LOVE to eat, they love to serve food, and they want you to eat it up! By the way, thankfully my mom has dropped the tradition of serving lutefisk and pickled herring for the Christmas Ever smorgasbord. But, oh, how I love the rice pudding with lingonberries and whipped cream!!!
Bret
I couldn’t agree more that it’s a parent’s responsibility and privilege to receive our children as they are. Parents have two main tasks right from the beginning–welcoming and then letting go. We welcome the person our child is (and open-ended questions that allow children’s imaginations to run free reveal a lot about who they are), and yet we soon have to begin the practice of “letting go,” e.g. letting them play with the kids down the block, stay overnight at their cousin’s, off to kindergarten, high school, perhaps college or a job, etc. That’s why I think mealtimes are so precious–they help us reconnect in a significant way during this continuing process of letting go. And the welcoming/letting go cycle is as true for spouses and other significant folks in our lives as well, don’t you think?
This is a great idea and great way to get dinner conversations flowing! Growing up, family dinners were a time for my brother and I to share how our day went. As we got older, family dinners were less frequent and there wasn’t as much discussion going on. The Meal Box is a great tool for starting conversations even as your children get older. I agree with Tom’s comment, these questions can help bring the fun back to meals!
To answer this Meal Box question, I think family tradations are very meaningful and make you appreciate the uniqueness that every family has. Now that all the kids in my family are grown up, we don’t see each other as much and family holidays are few and far between. I would like to go back and celebrate a Thanksgiving 10 years ago when it was still ok for me to run around the house and play!
Zen Mommy,
Just want to make sure I understand your question: Are you asking what to do if a child says something in their answer that is troubling/startling to a parent?
Thanks,
Bret
hey maggie…LOVE what you say here and hearing about your fam.
……and hey…………..it’s STILL ok to run around the house and play!!! tehehehe.*giggles* come over to my house with ria and the three of us will have a BIG time trying to keep up w/ our combined 4 kids. (they’d love nothing more than 2 bring out the kid in ya!)
Thanks for bringing up the power of ritual in our lives, Zen Mommy. (And I’m glad to have now met my first infant massage instructor!) The research on this overwhelmingly confirms what we innately sense–that regular family routines and rituals are associated with adolescents’ sense of personal identity, children’s health, academic achievement, and stronger family relationships. And meal time rituals and bedtime rituals are two of the most powerful in terms of having a beneficial effect on a child’s development.
As for the teens, whew, it’s all coming back to me now! I think you put the question well in focusing on what goes on within the parent. Deal with that, first. It takes a certain amount of maturity and toughness to parent a teen, and that’s an inside job for the parent. As for the teen, I’m not big on trying to control what teens (or any other people) say, but I’m committed to making sure that HOW we talk to one another is respectful, fair, and whenever possible, kind. The upshot is that we parents ought to be more mature than our children–though that’s often not the case in the thick of things. Anyone else have ideas on this?
hi Bret,
yes. maybe not alarming, but against the grain…something they may never relaly do.. maybe like “if i could do anything in the wold i’d get a belly button ring”…and you the parent are sitting there thinking “OVER MY DEAD BODY!!” tehehehe. i get it’s a great time to be relating and getting to know your child so i also imagine as the parent whose job it is to LISTEN one needs to be careful to listen wholey and fully, and not push them away with reaction to their heartfelt answers…
So yes, how would you coach parents on managing a difficult answer to hear?
hahaha love that. more mature than our kinds. that is so true and will be my new mantra ;p
off to teach some babies and their mommies MASSAGE (fav thing) thank you sooo much for being here and sharing this wonderful family traditio with us and our readers at MMM!! blessings to you all.
I actually used these questions at a recent family meal with my extended family & it was a big hit. The token teen among us was hesitant at first & kind of gave wise crack answers, but then he really got into it. What surprised me was how these “fun” questions brought us to a point of going to deeper conversations.
Zen Mommy, I’m glad it’s still ok to play and run around
It does sound like fun, especially right now while I’m sitting in an office!
Also, you bring up a great question on how to deal with a difficult answer! I’m interested to hear what Tom’s advice on that is. I like to think I’m WAY out of the tween years (but early 20’s it’s really too far)! I would think your tween would give an answer like that just to get a rise out of you and I would think not responding to that would be the best option. I remember telling my parents I was going to get a belly button ring probably when I was about 12 or 13…I never did.
Tom,
Thanks for your comment about speaking with respect, fairness & kindness. It’s so easy to forget that at times & it’s a good reminder to do that with the people we rub elbows with almost 24/7.
Maggie, recently I read a quote from Eckart Tolle. Something about… if you think you’re enlightened, spend a week with your parents! I had an opportunity to just that… see relatives recently and it was funny how true it was. So no matter how old you are, the long history of relationship you have with your parents/relatives makes it even more challenging to be engaging with who you are with in the PRESENT! I had to stop myself from reverting back to my old teen self in that situation, which would have been ridiculous… but I could feel her in there!
Zen Mommy,
The questions are designed, of course, to be fun…but it is true that once in a while a question will prompt an answer that a parent was TOTALLY not expecting. What I recommend is to let the child give their honest answer. Hear them out. Be sure that their answer is REALLY their answer. As you know, kids will often say something just to see what the parents’ responses will be.
And as someone mentioned earlier, the questions can lead to deeper conversations–about faith, life, love, etc. Look at the bright side: sometimes the hardest thing to do is get kids to open up and share what is really on their minds. The only way you might find out about the belly-button ring is through a fun question that allows them to “comfortably” open up. At that point, be glad the discussion is out in the open and go from there. Use it as an opportunity to have that deeper discussion, and to lovingly explain why you, as a parent, feel that your child’s answer could be a detriment to their well-being. As we all know from statistics, communicating with your kids is essential to their well-being in so many ways. Let the questions be a springboard to learing about your kids. And, I can assure you, the questions will also help you learn important things about yourself that you never knew!
You’re oh so right, Maggie, about the propensity of teens/tweens suggesting the outlandish just to get a rise out of adults. Humor and the ability to let the unimportant just slide by without comment come in handy. During a question-based conversation like the ones The Meal Box tries to generate, the point is to revel in our imaginations–something we often don’t get to indulge in at home. We’re so used to being in “get it done” mode. And so I’d treat a “what if?” kind of comment different than I would a “Mom, Dad, on my 13th birthday I’m getting my belly pierced.” And to tell you the truth, there’s no one-size-fits-all response to that kind of statement. But one thing is sure, the better your relationship, the easier it will be to find your way through. And so having lots of good conversations early sets the stage for later, more difficult conversations to turn out better.
Tom and Bret, thank you so much for joining us and adding some author insight to The Meal Box. I’ve certainly been having fun with it with my kids, as you can tell from the audios.
Maggie,
I see that you are a fairly recent graduate with a degree in communication. Congratulations! I graduated with a degree in communication back in the early ’90s, and look where it led: to a career in creating question products that help people communicate! In all seriousness, I think it’s an awesome degree to have. I am sure you will go very far!
And you are absolutely right: always make sure the answer being given is not just to see what the parents will say. Kids love to do that; in fact, I know plenty of adults who say things just to see what the other person’s repsonse will be. I’ve been guilty of it myself once in a while.
Bret
AMEN Practical Mommy. It’s amazing how easy it is to revert back to being a child around our parents. I think awareness is so important so we can consciously choose to be adults with our parents & consciously choose to respond to our children in ways that aren’t just reactionary of how we grew up. Easy to philosophize about & not so easy to practice.
Awwww, I tried to record an audio comment but only gave me ten seconds – boo suck!
I’m cheating a little. I’d like to see all our holiday dinners take place the whole year through. Instead of coming together as a family on Christmas Day, or Thanksgiving, or July 4 or Canada Day, etc, can’t we do more family stuff more of the time?
Meet up and go for a meal together. Hang in the park on Sundays with lazy picnics, pets and kids. Be more of a frequent event as opposed to that special one every now and again.
Just a thought
I’m loving the audios. Your children are so darned cute! Have they given any responses to the questions that have surprised you? I am always amazed at the depth children can bring to these open-ended questions.
Wouldn’t that be nice, Danny? I have friends who my neighborhood who are VERY “rigid” about not scheduling ANYTHING on weekends so that spontaneous get-togethers can occur. Your comment made me think of them because although unplanned, they seem to have a lot of family hang time.
Daily Blonde,
Love your idea about “Topic Thursday.” Sounds like a really fun way to get conversations going and add some knowledge in the process. Gratitude box? Love that, too. Gratitude is SO important to teach our children!
Bret
O.K., it’s time for the NOON-hour question today. We are quite literally EXACTLY halfway to next Christmas Eve, today being June 24th. So let’s go with a fun question for some lunchtime banter:
AS THE CHRISTMAS SEASON APPROACHES, WHAT SONG IS IT THAT YOU JUST CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR?
I’m not much for Christmas carols, really BUT my 5yo loves that Chipmunks Christmas song… about wanting a hula hoop.
“Baby It’s Cold Outside” is one of my favorite songs all year, but at Christmas I stand a better chance of hearing it. Every roommate I’ve ever had knows every word because I could listen to it on repeat
My younger daughter and I have one of those little family rituals that we do with a Frank Sinatra Christmas song that goes, “I love those J-I-N-G-L-E Bells, Woo!” And when we decorate the tree Patti pops that one in the CD player (used to be on the Hi-Fi!) and we have this little goofy dance we do with the song. It cracks everyone up and gets me out of any grumpy mood I might have about dragging all the decorations down from the attic. I’m smiling right now as I think about it.
Okay… I have this thing about George Winston’s December. We decorate to that!
Forgot to post my own answer to the question.
The song I can’t WAIT to hear is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” I’m not much for sentimental songs, but I truly LOVE that one. Oh, and the version I like best is the one sung by country artist Vince Gill (you know, one of those guys that could sing the phone book and you’d listen??). The song always brings back such wonderful family memories for me of the time when I was little.
By the way, Tom, you mention the decorating of the tree. Not sure what it is, but at least in our family, decorating the tree can be a very stressful time. I have heard this from many others, as well. I wonder what it is with decorating a Christmas tree and stress filling the room. The lights get strung up, while everyone else in the room gets unstrung!!
Bret
UGH! There are so many! Do I have to only pick one? Bing’s “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” Although we always put on the Partridge Family Christmas when we decorated. My sister will put that album on even in the middle of summer to help her de-stress!
Good question, Bret. I suspect that it has a lot to do with the inner anticipation that the holidays hold–whatever holidays that are meaningful to us. It’s the same way getting ready for vacations. And I suspect that it might just be something we have to go through to get to the goodies of the holiday, the relaxation of vacation, or even meal time connection with people we care about. And perhaps it’s the avoidance of that in-between time (like entering a party where you know you’ll probably have a great time but aren’t sure if any of your friends are there yet) that keeps us from doing the things we know would be good for us and fun and in fact satisfying. Then again, it might be the chipmunks on the radio singing about their blasted hula hoop.
Here’s a question: Is there some meal in your life that stands out head and shoulders above the rest? Maybe it was momentous or simple. With a big crowd or just one other person. Wanna share?
I always think of the quasi- last meals. Before someone goes on a trip, dinner the last night on vacation, before someone goes off to college, even something as simple as the night before the first day of school. Those meals always have a sense of the next step and really can be markers in your life.
Yes, there was a meal… in Portofino in 1999. We were the only table at the Restaurante Puny
and I had THE best pomodoro ever. We stayed for 2 hours and visited with the owner. I think that man was what made it so memorable. His appreciation for his children and for his life. It was really cool!
…BRUCE SPRINGSTEINS “I SAW MAMA KISSIN SANTA CLAUS…: ;P
…and on the outstanding meal…our first dinner as a married couple on our honeymoon in Greece. We were jet lagred but sooo excited to be there so we showered up and went out on the town. A romantic walk to a spot around the corner with a roof top table and a view of ancient Greece…and my sweetie. ahhhh. Thank you for the memory. I have not thought of this night for years. It makes me want to go out and buy two plane tickets …(or at the very least cook something Grecian tonight ;p)
Thanks for a wonderful day hanging out at your blog. What a lively, informative, and fun place it is. And thanks for all your good words about The Meal Box. Our wish for you is that you enjoy countless wonderful, memorable meals with those you love. –Bret and Tom
P.S. Tonight we read, “Kids: what is the most important thing your parents have taught you so far?”
(pause)
(pause)
“What DORK means.”