What were your childhood Sundays like?

[fluffernutter]

I remember as a kid, Sundays were dedicated "family days".

We would have only 2 meals on Sundays ... my mom would make a big brunch breakfast of sausages and fluffy waffles with cut up straawberries and bananas drizzled with warm maple syrup, and scrambled eggs and toast with jam and juice.

This would be after church, and at home we'd hang out and do a big huge jigsaw puzzle that was on the coffee table or read or play cards or Monopoly or something. My stepdad would have classical music playing most of the day as well. Sometimes we would watch a movie too.

Then, Mom would bust out a big old dinner for all of us that we ate earlyish, at around 4pm. Like a pot roast with potatoes and carrots, gravy, broccoli casserole, warm buttered rolls, and a big salad with her famous homemade dressing. Of course she also had a homemade blueberry pie or something for dessert too.

Later, at like 8ish, we always made popcorn and shakes in the blender and watched some tv together. Dang, I miss those days!

What were your Sunday's like?

[ohioliberal]

1. We would go to church and then

we would go out to breakfast. Then me, my brother and sister would have our friends over, my mom and dad were the neighborhood parents and play then we would have a big dinner about 6pm and then sit and watch tv. I don't miss those days, I hate to cook.

[fluffernutter]

15. At least you went OUT to breakfast ;)

I loved houses like yours with the neighborhood parents, I bet your folks were cool.

[Nikepallas]

2. Well, nothing the fundies would like. We always went to church on Sat

night. Then Sunday was football day. I live in an area of the country where Football was your life. If your team(s) won it didn't matter what happened the rest of the week - house burning down, robbed, death...whatever- it was a good week.

If your team(s) lost your week was bad even if- you held the cure for cancer in your hand, won the noble peace prize...whatever-it was the worse week of your life.

So we usually has a Italian meal around noon (dinner) and just sat back and watched the rest of the day. (if you can call screaming at the television and jumping up every other play either in victory or anger at a stupid call relaxing.)

[fluffernutter]

14. lol, that was too funny!

I knew a family just like that - my brother's best friend. Their house always smelled like garlic and testosterone ;) My brother loved it because he loved football too.

[Fenris]

3. Stay at home, play outside, laugh at the people going to church.

My parents are not religious. Not at all. They'd get high in the afternoon and would sit out on the deck while my sister and I played in the backyard. Then mom would make a big dinner and everyone would go to bed around 9.30.

Ah, memories.

[flamingyouth]

5. Sounds lovely!

When can I come over? ;)

[nytemare]

4. I grew up in DC suburb, Sundays were "'Skindays"

Around my house, Redskins were a religion, and the day revolved around watching the game.

I suppose this could be one reason I converted from Christianity to Buddhism, in Buddhism the realization that in life there is suffering is a main facet of the religion. The Redskins have sucked so bad the last few years, it has been suffering to be a fan...LOL.

[fluffernutter]

16. "Skindays" - too funny.

[Padraig18]

6. Very family-oriented.

Mass, then lunch at Gran's or some other relative's house, all the kids playing together, the adults talking, drinking, playing cards or watching sports on TV, etc. . Pretty 'traditional', IOW.
:)

[fluffernutter]

18. I missed not being closer to family as a kid

because my relatives who still lived in the place i was born would all go to Gramma's too. i loved it when we visited and all of us were able to be together like that :)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. a quiet time

we ate a light breakfast and always went to church. I was in the choir from age 3. We usually stayed for the two services. I remembered I liked going to the 'grown up' service instead of Sunday school, which always seemed a bit lame-I'd ask questions about Jesus and His teachings and how they should be practiced today that made the teachers rather uncomfortable. Often my mother would talk to me about matters of faith, and she encouraged discussion and thinking on my own.

After church, my mother, grandmother, and I would often go out for dinner, often traveling to another town. This was a big deal. Sometimes we'd visit my great great uncle, who had taken part in the Alaskan Gold Rush and who had lived with Native Americans. And sometimes we'd go to the movies, like The Ten Commandments.

And I'd get to read the Sunday funnies. They were larger back then, and there were more of them as well.

At night, we'd watch Ed Sullivan on television.

[fluffernutter]

17. yeah, Sunday's were always pretty subdued

at my house too.

I like how you would travel out to dinner. I also forgot the whole Sunday paper ritual my parents had, and I would read the funnies too :)

[TheCentepedeShoes]

8. Go to Sunday School

and church by myself (or not) - eat dinner - watch tv - often a movie as Dad was a big baseball fan and the games were on Saturday afternoon - he never watched pro football - Dad would mow grass and work in yard.

[City Lights]

9. We went to Church/Sunday School regularly.

My dad's mom lived across the street from our church, so we stopped by to visit her. From there we went to my mom's mom who lived about 5 minutes away. We always stopped for fresh lunch meat and rolls on the way home and ate lunch as soon as everyone changed clothes.

In the fall our Sundays revolved around the Bears. The downside to football season was that we didn't do much together as a family. The upside was that my dad taught me all about the game, and I learned to love it as much as he did. I became his football partner. :D

My mom always cooked a nice meal on Sundays. My favorite was beef stew. :9

[fluffernutter]

19. I loved those nice Sunday meals!

beef stew is one of my faves, with dumplings on top :9

[City Lights]

25. Yes! The dumplings make the stew.

This continues to be one of my family's favorite meals. My kids love the dumplings. My mom used to put them in her navy bean soup too. Unfortunately she never wrote down her soup recipe for me before she died, and no one in my family knows how to make the soup the way she used to make it. :-( My sister has tried numerous times, but it's not the same. My aunts have no clue either.

[fluffernutter]

27. oh no!

i'm sorry you lost your mom and her yummy navy bean soup recipe. i hate it when favorite family recipes get lost forever, my gram used to make the most amazing green chili stew, and no one can make it the way she did either.

keep trying, maybe you'll stumble on to her secret someday :)

[City Lights]

32. Thanks for your kind words.

:-)

Unfortunately, my mom kept her recipes in her head. She only wrote them down when asked to share, and I never asked her to write down the one for navy bean soup. x( I've even gone through all the church cookbooks - the ones where members submit their favorite recipes. I guess she never submitted that one. I'll keep experimenting and looking though - maybe I'll get lucky one of these times.

[Longgrain]

10. Boring...

Altar boy you know, had to get up real early, sometimes even having to walk to Church in the snow...

Tedious standing there all morning in a white linen robe, thinking about anything except what the priest was saying...

Christmas morning Masses were the worst...you just wanted to get home to play with your new toys...

Still, regular Sundays were usually nice, walking home from church we'd always stop at this little convenience store along the way...Mom always treated us to a candy and a soda after church...

The rest of the day was just for playing until supper. We usually had a big Family meal on Sunday nights...It's about the only thing we still do together...

Sunday evenings were always a bit of melancholia though, knowing you had to go to school the next day...those grown ups just don't understand...

Oh wait it's Sunday evening now and I have to go to work tomorrow! ;( Some things never change...

[fluffernutter]

20. lol, i know what you mean about Sunday evenings-

there's always that thought in the back of your head that you have to go to school/work in the morning.

we got to skip church on Christmas because we did the midnight mass thing the night before ;) i loved that.

[Longgrain]

26. But Sunday afternoons were usually fun!

Playing in the woods with my brothers, sledding in the winter time...
Lot's of good memories...maybe boring wasn't the best word...just lazy...

Lot's of time with nothing to do...

[fluffernutter]

28. yeah, lazy.

but nice :)

it's cool that your family still has Sunday Suppers together.

[Longgrain]

31. Just came back from one...

It's become our weekly ritual.

Sundays I'm the P.M. You seem to get the picture.

[fluffernutter]

33. is that code for something?

;) cuz it sounds like it ... clue me in, bucko.

[Longgrain]

34. Two words

In Boxed letters.

We don't get mail here on Sundays...

[n2mark]

11. Sundays

we had breakfast usually bacon, eggs and toast. We went to church then we for a Sunday drive into the country. We stopped at the roadside stands and bought fresh fruits and veggies.

My daughter and I drive and drive and cannot find the stands anymore. This is sad.

[Ekirh]

12. Hmmmm

Sunday's were usually church day

Before Church have a huge family breakfast (Which always ruled by the way)

Go to church into Noon....

And that's about it.. Sunday wasn't really family day... but For my Mom it was Church Day. Church during the Morning and Church at night. Dad never went to church, becuase he was always working on something, or would decide Sunday was his day off so he would go fishing all day.

After Church I usually did homework, unless it was summer and then I would probably be at my grand parents being fatten up and watching movies with grand ma.

[LandOLincoln]

13. I was born in 1943, and my family is not religious, so I

expect my Sundays were a bit different from most of yours.

Until I was 11 we shared a huge two-story duplex with my maternal grandparents, both retired educators, and two cousins who'd come to live with the grandparents after their parents died.

We'd have a big breakfast downstairs and the adults would listen to classical music on the radio and read the Sunday paper while us kids fought over the comics.

Then we'd play until dinnertime--and dinner was always chicken & noodles (homemade noodles of course) and Jack Benny on the radio.

When I was 11 my immediate family moved to our own acre on the edge of town, and the routine was slightly modified. We got television shortly after the move, so Saturday nights got to be as ritualized as Sundays: my mom would make cheeseburgers--two patties of lean hamburger from local beef (we're talking east central Illinois here) with a slice of cheese in the middle, plus our own green onions in season, dill pickle slices and best of all, potato chips on the side. It was the only time we were allowed "junk" food at home.

Then we'd all sit down together, eat our cheeseburgers and watch Gunsmoke.

Sunday mornings I'd get up, get one or two of the leftover cheeseburger patties from the fridge, layer it with dill pickle slices, and read the Sunday paper--by this time I was reading the entire paper, of course--while breakfasting on those delicious cold cheeseburger patties with the crunchy pickle slices on top. If I ran out of pickle slices I'd dip the pattie in the pickle brine instead. (I'm drooling at the memory.)

Sunday evenings stayed the same--chicken & noodles and Jack Benny--except by this time he was on TV, and we watched the Ed Sullivan show as well.

It was a great time to be a kid. I wouldn't be young now for love nor money.

[fluffernutter]

21. now that's what i'm talkin about.

GREAT story there. i love to hear about all times ... your mom's cheeseburgers have me drooling too - i am going to have to make them that way just becuase of you now ;)

the chicken and noodles sounds good too. i really love family rituals like that :) thanks so much for sharing.

[China_cat]

29. Sounds like my childhood

except that if the weather was good and grandpa had a well going (water well driller) he'd go out and work for at least part of the day or he'd take the drill bits over to the farm forge to dress them. (This was long before he got an acetylene welder to do it.) He'd take me along sometimes. There were fields of daisies and other wild flowers to run in and pick for my grandmother, sometimes wild bunnies and other animals to catch sight of...and I was with my grandpa.

I don't remember anything special for Sunday breakfasts but Sunday dinners were usually roast chicken with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas and pie for dessert.

Evenings we'd watch tv although I mostly remember the one show (but not it's name) that came on right at my bedtime. It was a detective show and I'd beg to stay up and watch it but only rarely succeeded.

[proud patriot]

22. Lawrence Welk , 60 minutes and Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom

that's what I remember watching as a family every Sunday.

[fluffernutter]

23. oh I totally remember Wild Kingdom!

that song and the running lions. great memory!

[ikojo]

24. It depends upon which chapter of my mom's life we are talking about

The part I liked went like this:

My mom would put a roast and the trimmings in the crock pot (or else start a pot of chili)
Sometimes she'd make a big breakfast of pancakes and eggs and hash browns (but that was not very often). Most of the time we ate cereal.
We'd turn on channel 11 KPLR out of St Louis and watch Ron Ely's Tarzan followed by Wrestling at the Chase (now THAT was wrestling!)
By noon the roast was usually done and quite delicious.
We'd eat in the living room and watch whatever movie was on Channel 11 or WGN Channel 9 (Springfield Illinois' cable system got both stations)

In my early childhood years Sundays meant possibly going to visit my dad. I'd wait and wait and wait and most of the time he never showed.

Shortly after my mom and dad's divorce my mom went hippie and always had parties on the weekend. I was six when they divorced and HATED that time. My younger brother and I would have to be quiet when we got up early in the morning because there were always sleeping people on the floor in the living room.

My mom tried various schemes to get rid of me and my brother on Sunday mornings such as putting us on a neighborhood church bus and forcing us to go to Sunday school just so we'd be out of the house. I HATED LOATHED AND DESPISED that. We were made fun of by the "christian" kids. That didn't last too long though because we started to rebel against that. Oy vey!

[fluffernutter]

30. oy vey is right!

how awful. i'm sorry some of your memories were hard. my parents got divorced when i was young too. that time really sucked. i'm sorry your dad never showed on his days - my dad moved far away, and we only saw him in the summer when we flew out alone. :hug:

[ikojo]

35. Thanks much fluffer....

I have forgiven my mom for her excesses...but not without a lot of therapy.

I cannot imagine the burden she had and her marriage to my dad wasn't all that great, that's for sure. My mom is a survivor and I applaud her for that.

Here are some cyberhugs for all children of divorce

:hug: :hug: :hug: :hug:

[Left Is Write]

36. We went to church in the morning and often stopped for doughnuts

on the way home. If we didn't stop for doughnuts, and it wasn't football season, Mom would make pancakes and sausage for brunch when we got home.

During football season, after church, Mom would make grilled cheese sandwiches and grilled peanut butter sandwiches. She made milkshakes to go along with the sandwiches and that was our lunch before the noon football game started. Dad would watch football in the basement family room with a fire in the fireplace. Mom would join him and read and/or knit while periodically glancing at the football game.

The kids were in and out of the family room. Almost invariably, my dad would make a huge bowl of popcorn.

Often on Sunday evenings, we would get to cook hotdogs or pieces of family steak in the fireplace, and sometimes we'd get to toast marshmallows too.

My mother loves board games (and passed her love of games onto many of her children), so many times we'd have games of Scrabble, Parcheesi, Life, or Monopoly going on.

[fluffernutter]

45. ahh, sounds familiar to mine.

except for the football part - until my brothers got older of course. my father loved football, but my stepdad was not into it at all, so we listened to classical music while playing games instead.

i love the part about cooking things in your fireplace, what a neat memory.

[short bus president]

37. Like Saturdays,

but with crappy cartoons. ;-)

[fluffernutter]

46. you are definitely a man

of few words. but it fits you ;)

[MissMillie]

38. Church in the morning

Big mid-day dinner, complete with pie or cake for dessert.

Sometimes my grandmothers and/or my great aunt would come for dinner.

After dinner, we'd play cards, usually Bridge.

Light supper (usually leftovers from the mid-day meal).

At night, my folks would watch 60 minutes (it was the only time they insisted on having what THEY wanted on the TV) and my brothers and sisters and I would get our clothes ready for school the next day.

[HEyHEY]

39. Got out of the house ASAP or was conscripted into yardwork.

Then around 3 I'd come in (unless it was summer) and play with constructs. Then we'd have a big dinner and my sisters and I would watch the wonderful world of disney on CBC then Ewoks then dad would come in and turn on the beachcombers and then 60 minutes.

[fluffernutter]

47. lol! we pulled that trick on Saturdays.

that was our scheduled 'chore day' :eyes:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. I was a preacher's kid

We got up early on Sundays, went to church at 8:30 and then to Sunday school. There was an 11:00 service, too, but my mother took us home and started making lunch while we read the comic session of the paper.

After lumch, we'd watch TV. In those days, Sunday afternoons were for cultural programs on network TV. I remember seeing Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, performances by the New York City Opera and England's Royal Ballet, as well as a Nova-like science program called Conquest.

In the evenings, we'd watch Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color followed by the Ed Sullivan Show. Sometimes, we'd have popcorn.

[fluffernutter]

43. just like 7th Heaven

;) j/k! kinda cool about the cultural program thing, i bet you learned some thing you never would have without it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

49. Cultural programming

You're right about that. Nowadays its ghettoized on PBS and a few cable channels, so most people never encounter it accidentally. Due to "narrowcasting," people watch only what they're already interested in.

In those days, there were only 3 channels, so you watched what there was, and sometimes it happened to be the opera.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

41. Dad would make pancakes for breakfast

He said when I said my prayers I'd say, "God bless my dad, the good cooker." Off to Sunday school and church on the bus, then home. Sunday dinner with the parents (usually pot roast or meat loaf). Watched cartoons and then "The Wonderful World of Disney" at 6 p.m.

[fluffernutter]

42. oh, what a cute blessing you had for your dad!

my grampa was the sunday breakfast cook for my mom's family too - i remember just loving his pancakes too as a kid when we'd visit.

[mondo joe]

44. 30 people over for pasta

I lived in my Sicilian grandmother's house, so every Sunday all of her children and grandchildren came over for pasta, served at about 2:00.

Food was our religion so this was our church.

[fluffernutter]

48. i love that!

i bet the food was divine :9