Family Night!

It's Friday and if you are a Wynnederson, you know what that means!  It's Family Night!

One of our favorite traditions when we were raising kids was family night.  Ours was always Friday night. Our friends, the Tullos family, had family night on Saturday night with Walker,Texas Ranger, but Friday was definitely our night.   

The formula was simple, but it worked for many years.  The following ingredients were critical:

1.  Two comforters with balloon print spread across the floor
2.  Everyone in comfy clothes
3. Everyone present.  Friday nights were sacred.  I remember how sad Tyler was when he was still young and thinking family night would always be. He couldn't believe that when  his sisters went away to college, they wouldn't be there for family night.
4.  Some form of pizza - sources varied through the years depending on where we lived - Little Caesar's, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Papa John's,  frozen Totino's during lean years - you could get them for less than a dollar - and even a few times when Soulmate decided to make pizzas,  That man - he can do it all.  Through the many years of family night, the menu never varied. Always pizza.
5.  Dorky Friday night TV - for years it was TGIF.  Do any of the following sound familiar to you? Family Matters, Full House, Step by Step, Boy Meets World, Hanging with Mr. Cooper.  Occasionally, it was old movies like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court with Bing Crosby and The Court Jester with Danny Kaye or Calamity Jane with Doris Day.   At Christmas time it was always Christmas movies like White Christmas and the original Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  

It seems so simple, but trust me it worked for years.  Just bodies of children spread across the comforters enjoying pizza and watching TV together and enjoying being together.  Often our own four were joined by friends who had come for a sleepover.  The friends knew what Friday night was like in the Wynne home, and I think they liked it too.

Now on Friday nights, there aren't any balloon comforters on the floor and TGIF is no more and there aren't sweet children strewn across the room angling for their space on the comforter, TV show or the last piece of pizza.

But habits die hard.  Most Friday nights, Soulmate and I are in our chairs eating pizza and watching TV.

It is quieter but still as sweet.

And every so often, the phone will ring, and one of our four will say "Are you having family night?  I'm on my way."

That's when I know that family night was about more than pizza, and silly TV shows.  It was about family.

Love to all of you out there or no one - whichever fits. J