Sunday... "A Day of Rest"?

Question: How do you make a nice meal for your family on Sunday and not have it take your Sunday? When we get home from church I feed my kids a light snack and then I prepare the meal that we will eat around 5:00 to 6:00. I usually try to do easy meals but yet I feel that I am in the kitchen all day. I even get my kids to help but it doesn't cut the time down. By the time I clean up from the morning dishes and snack, then I cook the main dinner and then clean up from that, I feel that I do not have a "day of rest". Any insights????

Thanks for your help, M

Answer: While every family is different, many family’s Sunday meal preparations take up a good chunk of Sunday and seemed to distract from family time together. I would suggest several ideas to change this:

Cook a crock pot meal on weekday evening which you double in size. Then use the leftovers for Sunday’s needs. For instance, make up a nice roast beef stew in the crock pot, serve it on Thursday evening, and then heat it again in the crock pot Sunday afternoon and serve it again to minimize Sunday meal preparations.

Cook Breakfast for Dinner on Sunday. This method is particularly useful in a busy family’s life because it is easy, short, and fun. You might rotate pancakes, waffles, German pancakes, and French toast through the four Sundays of the month with pre-cooked bacon and/or sausage, fresh fruit (prepared on Saturday), and oven-baked hash browns.

Most importantly, don’t be a maid on Sunday. It is useful to include your spouse, when he is home, in the meal preparations and cleanup as this example is very useful to encourage your children to also help. If he does something to help prepare and something to help clean up, then each child could also do somethings before and after so lighten your load.

Take care now, M

Any questions, please write me at marie@houseoforder.com