Did someone say take out?

In our family, just about every family gathering revolves around food. We are always trying to come up with some excuse to go out to dinner. Whenever my wealthy and eccentric Great Aunt Inga and Uncle Jerry come into town from California, we get the entire extended family together and go out to the Spaghetti Factory. The odd part is that the majority of us never get together or really even talk unless Inga and Jerry are in town. As soon as we all get together though, it is hours of laughing and just having a good time. When we all leave we all promise to "get together more often" but never do.

Birthdays are another going out event in my family. Now that we are all adults and have families and lives of our own, we always make it a point to go out to dinner for someone's birthday. We invite our close family and sometimes a few close friends. I love these dinners because even though we are close family, these days it can still be difficult to get together. They remind me of when I was growing up. After my parents got divorced when I was little, it was just my mom, my two brothers and I. Every Sunday after church we would go to this little hole in the wall Chinese restaurant in Marysville. Good portions, good food, great price! We always looked forward to it. We seriously did this for several years, and the wait staff and owners knew our family and we loved that.

I think our family likes going out to eat because no one is stuck in the kitchen or worrying about cleaning up after. Everyone gets to relax. We all get to participate in the conversations and just the event that is our family getting together. No matter who with, or where we go, going out to eat is our family tradition.