It's getting cooler now in New England, Rachel, so Dad and I have had a fire both of the last two nights and have started something that I think just might become a tradition: eating dinner by a roaring fire in the fireplace. When you kids were home, I was semi-obsessed with making sure we had sit-down dinners. Between my general guilt about working and reading some study that said children who didn't eat at least X-number of family meals a week were destined to become juvenile delinquents and psychopaths, I really tried to make sure we had at least 3 meals as a group around the kitchen table each week.
Even when Dad wasn't going to be home for dinner and you all needed to eat earlier for whatever reason, I tried to be present at the table, instituting fun rules like no reading at the table and having each person say something about their day. Depending on your age, this was met with enthusiasm or rolled eyes if not downright surliness. But I persevered.
I know you're not living in fireplace country at the moment, but I highly recommend this down the road. The fire has added warmth beyond the heat it literally throws. In a house that seems larger than necessary with just the two of us, it makes, as fires do, everything seem just a titch cozier. {Titch, by the way, is one of my new favorite words and I'm pretty sure I just made it up.) One night I lit candles as well. We talked over our days and caught up. For just a little while it was just the two of us, and that was just right.
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