Monday, January 28, 2008

After-Church Fellowship

When I was a kid, going out for lunch after church on Sunday was almost a given. It's definitely something I took for granted, and I know I was always disappointed when we went home after church instead of going to a restaurant.

On many occasions, the restaurant of choice was Chi-Chi's, a mexican chain that we had in our town. Chi-Chi's no longer has their restaurants, but in it's day, it was a great place to eat. Even better was the fact that we often went out with at least one other family from church. I remember waiting FOREVER to be seated, and when our name was finally called, we had one of the biggest tables in the restaurant. All the kids would sit at one end, and the adults would fellowship at the other end. I imagine that kids ate for free on Sundays, or at least for cheap. I seem to remember the items on the kids menu being 99 cents. Boy, do I wish they still were! Anyway, those were great memories....my siblings and I with our church friends, filling up on the endless baskets of chips and salsa, adding more salt with every chip we ate, and probably making quite a mess as we enjoyed ourselves.

Nowadays I admit that I feel a sense of disappointment nearly every Sunday afternoon. We almost never eat out on Sundays, and it is my least favorite meal of the week to cook. I guess it was something I got used to as a kid, and even continued in the tradition in adulthood until I had kids. Alas, kids change everything, don't they? :)

Well, yesterday was a treat. I had finished a scrapbook for a client and made some good money for it. We decided on a whim, to eat at a local Mexican restaurant, where kids eat free on Sundays. As we were sitting there, I watched the "after-church" crowd pour in. I noticed a few tables being shoved together and a large group sitting down to enjoy a meal and continued fellowship. And it just brought back those memories. If I could do this every week I would. And I'd invite a few friends from church to join us. After all, great memories are often made around the table!

3 comments:

Kim said...

We share meals each SUnday with our small group. We each cook a part of the meal, so not much cooking for any one person.

Thanks for stopping by the blog earlier for my contest. Don't forget to come back tomorrow as well for the next contest.
Thanks, Kim

Charlene said...

Well I've dropped in because of Living Well Wednesday's but found alot of things in common with you! We too love to go out on Sunday after church for lunch, I love to scrapbook AND I used to do Walk A way the pounds - see previous post! I've got you bookmarked now for sure!!!!!!

michelle said...

Those were great times, Melissa, and yeah, we did make a pretty big mess at the kid's end of the table!