I've posted this before - the shot of Richard coming to FHE with a bag over his head so he wouldn't get into trouble!! I thought about it tonight as our weekly FHE once again turned out to be whatever we were doing anyway!!
I always thought the biggest FHE challenge was how to appeal to a diverse group of young children - ranging in age from teens to toddlers.
And now I see that as you get older - and there are no kids at home - the problem becomes how to appeal to a much less diverse group - in fact, you might even say a homogenous group - who pretty much forgets most of the time to even call it FHE!!
Occasionally I say things like, "Shall we go to the show for FHE tonight?" when there's a show I'd like to see. Or "shall we invite so and so over tonight? We can count it as FHE!"
I have often thought over the years that I had pretty much been a failure at FHE. I felt like we hadn't held it regularly enough, or made it compelling enough. But then I hear our kids say that they felt like we always had it, so I guess we held it often enough - and it was memorable enough.
We had a few Monday night traditions. Harry was often not home for dinner - but he pretty much always was there on Monday nights. And we weren't big on dessert, but we always had it on Monday nights. Maybe that's what the kids remember.
And once we had some skilled pianists in our midst, we always had music.
And the Ides of March celebrations were often held on Monday nights. They made nice FHE events.
And who can forget Family Olympics? Or mock graduation ceremonies. Or watching Little House on the Prairie on Monday nights and calling it FHE?
I think the lesson here is that we just have to keep going forward. We do our best, and we are not too hard on ourselves. I guess if I asked Harry, he'd probably feel that we had a significant Monday night sit-down more often than I think we do.
And we still pretty much always have dinner together on Monday nights - a habit from long ago - one that probably contributed to some kind of stability over the years.
But I do miss the piano playing!
