What's your favorite day of the week?

What is your favorite day of the week?

Posing that question to myself, I couldn't help but think of a great scene from Seinfeld. 1-minute Seinfeld clip

In Sweden, people are crazy for Friday nights. Although I think most people love Friday nights, here in Sweden it seems the television channels and snack companies have paired together to create "Fredagsmys", which means "Friday night cozy." I have read some articles about the importance of this evening in Sweden, where an Ethnologist described Friday evening cozy family time as a modern ritual, marking the time between a work week and the weekend. http://www.aftonbladet.se/matvin/article11864648.ab (Article in Swedish). Lots of our friends tell us that the family plans ahead for Friday evenings, to spend together usually watching TV and eating snacks together. I think the key, however, is sitting down together to family time (although like I said, I do tend to wonder if the TV and snacks companies' advertising has greatly influenced this modern ritual...)

I think the idea of a relaxing evening at home sounds great. However, today I realized that I really want Sundays to be our family days. Too often we have things we have to do on Sundays, just like every day, whether Tomas has to correct papers or I am behind on homework due to illness. But we have started to get into a good routine on Sundays and today we decided to try to make Sundays even better. After relaxing in the morning at home together (well, except for the inevitable rush around to try to beat the clock when we are heading out the door, a lot on my part), first we go to church together. Yaminah has started to love Sunday School, so she goes to that (so far with Tomas but we hope she can go by herself when she is a little older). Our church has a gymnasium, so after church, "fika" (coffee and sandwiches & cookies), Yaminah runs around in the gym for a while until she is tired. Then we load her up in the stroller and walk into town. Today the sky was a bright blue, the sun was warm, and lots of people were out walking in the afternoon. Then while Yaminah takes her nap in her stroller, Tomas and I enjoy a lunch out in a restaurant. Today we tried Basilika--pasta & pizza. Yum!

I hope that we can expand our Sunday routine a bit more in the future, however, to also include going home and either walking together outside, or going to the playground, or a picnic in the park... I have decided that we should prepare a dessert in the morning. That way, when we return home from our lunch, "fika" is ready; all we have to do is brew a pot of tea.

It is so easy to get caught up in rushing around every single day of the week, and to be overwhelmed by stress. We have these problems too--a week begins and ends, another begins and ends--time flies and before we know it, we have just gone through the motions and hardly spent any quality time together at all. Now I want to reserve Sundays, at least from morning to afternoon, for family time, without working, or studying; for reflection and the indulging of sweets. :)

What is your family's favorite day? What "rituals" do you keep?

Whatever day of the week is your favorite, I hope that it will include some time set aside for family. Wishing you and your family a good week!