Evenings
I enjoy our evenings. I mean I REALLY enjoy our evenings. We don’t do anything particularly special on our evenings: We cook. We eat at a table as a family. We talk. We play games. We read. We watch TV. We relax. Our evenings are not filled with hustle and bustle. They are spent together hanging out. I cherish the time and don’t give it up easily.
We used to be the average American family. Our evenings were filled with things. We did school and work during the day and the extras in the evenings. We ate, and came home, and slept, and did it all again the next day with something different. Some evenings we even went our separate ways to do all the extra curricular activities we were in.
A few years back we stopped. We did nothing. I came to cherish the stillness and togetherness. Now we do one activity on a weekly basis. During the day. We float and rotate other activities on a non-stressful loose schedule. All during the day. We thought long and hard about adding to our activity and a couple of nights a month we give up an evening to our one activity.
I am always hesitant to add anything to our schedule. We enjoy doing things, but still have a lot of free time to let ourselves unwind and be creative. I don’t want to go back to the hustle and bustle of rarely (Or never.) having an evening home. Everything seems to be during the evenings. You can have something every evening and never be home except to sleep! Evening service at church, Scouts, karate, church again, music, dance, date night, friends night, kids’ night, movie night, on and on till there are no evenings left in a week or a month. Next thing you know years have flown by.
Yes, we miss out on certain things, but I believe the benefits of not burning the candle at both ends are worth it. We are not usually stressed about our activities. We are generally on time to the things we attend . We get the things we say will do done. We keep up with our schooling. Our home is usually clean…or at least organized. We eat most of our meals at our kitchen table at home. Best of all we spend large quantities of time relaxing at home as a family.
It’s a balance we have found that works in our lives and we cherish our evenings. What do you with with your evenings? How much time are you actually spending together?