The idea behind this practicum was to explore my value of Family. I wanted my family to get together for dinner every night for a week. We ultimately realized this wasn’t possible but met for five (or six) of the seven nights which works for me. It actually turned out to be more than just my immediate family some nights as we did this over Thanksgiving which brought our extended family into the picture. Thanksgiving was probably the most fun night of all the nights we got together and had the best food. My relatives are all pretty cool and I don’t see some of them that often so it was nice having them around.
I guess I actually had several kinds of family dinners: I had ones with just the immediate family of my Mom, Dad and Sister, but there was also Thanksgiving and another night with extended family as well as a night with just my Mom and Dad, but also two of my friends who we’d invited over. I’m not sure what I wanted out of this practicum and I’m not sure what exactly I learned. I didn’t have some grand realization about myself or my family, I just wanted us to get together and see what would happen. Everyone liked the idea… well, my parents liked the idea, and my sister was totally indifferent to the whole thing. I don’t think she really understood what the point was. My Mom has said that she was happy that I provided the initiative for the gatherings rather than her or my Dad.
I personally was happy to get together with everyone for five (or six) nights. It was fun, if not revelatory. Actually, I guess I did learn something. I both like getting together with my family for dinner and dislike elements of it, setting the table and having to wait till everyone was seated to eat being two of those elements. I guess I was hoping that I would come back to you guys with some sort of insight into my family that wasn’t there before but I don’t really have it. I love my family very much and would like to make family dinners a more common occurrence around our house, schedules allowing
