My family has always been close, but I don’t think it was ever really a choice. My mom and dad both came from large families. When they decided to relocate from South Jersey to North Central Florida, away from all of their family and friends, I think they sealed the deal. With my dad working during the day and attending night school, and my mom staying home with four of us under the age of 6, they couldn’t afford a house in town. They found a 30-acre parcel about a half-hour outside of town and secured a loan through a family friend. Then they literally picked up and moved a house they owned in a neighboring town and had it set down in the middle of the field they had just bought. This was our new home. There were few neighbors to speak of so mostly we had each other.

For the first few years we lived there, my mom and dad worked from home. My dad had since stopped pursuing his masters degree and was dedicating his time to building up a small printing business. Initially printing was a craft he’d learned from his father, and he was printing to put himself through school. I’m not sure when he decided that he could just -be- a printer. Regardless, my mom helped him with the business development and we grew up in the midst of it all.

Most of the time, we kids were outside – running through cow pastures, up and down the creek that runs through the property, in and out of little pockets of woods, up in trees, under the house, and in our secret hideouts. Sometimes we were just running around in a type of blissful hysteria. It sounds idyllic and it was. This, in essence, was my childhood.

In a family of six, there is a lot of inherent chaos to the daily regimen. The one constant for us was dinner time. We rarely missed a meal. It wasn’t often fancy, but was always plentiful. There was a lot of talk about work between my mom and dad, accounts of our days at school, updates on our social lives, and the occasional lively disagreement. It really didn’t matter what we were talking about. It was more the coming together that helped to shape us as a family.

I was 18 when my grandpa died and my grandma decided to move closer to us. My mom started hosting a Sunday dinner at my parent’s house. Since then, my grandma has also passed, but we’ve added four little ones to the mix. Every Sunday, we all (minus my younger brother Tyler who recently moved to Boston) make our way out to the farm. We usually arrive in time to stuff our selves with snacks and cocktails while the kids play in the living room and mom finishes dinner. She dedicates the better part of every weekend planning, shopping, and preparing this meal. But it isn’t -just- a meal.

It is a tradition. And, sometimes, feels like it’s what holds us together now that we don’t all live under the same roof. It is easy to take it all for granted until I see the way my kid’s faces light up when they realize it is Sunday. They are always so excited to see everyone. We sit down around the table and share dinner. The conversation hasn’t really even changed much. But that is a comfort.

I like the thought that I’m passing on this sense of family to my own kids. I think they have it even better than we did.  Each Sunday we offer our kids something to cherish and to remember. These memories can last forever and can become the foundation for how they build their own families when the time comes.

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