A couple of years ago I saved this note from a reader:
Help, I’ve opened my home too often at the expense of my family!
In our home, we really try to have intentional family time. Time when it is just our immediate family present. I get the “feeling” when our family needs to regroup. It’s almost like a longing in my heart – the need for connection between just my husband, myself and our children. I’ve shared this with my friends and they feel the same way. So when this happens (opportunities to keep inviting and inviting), I have no problem saying, “no!”
Obviously both sharing with friends and having alone time with family are healthy! We just need a balance.
I love this plaque that my cousin Terri got me for a Christmas gift this year, that is hanging on my dining room wall. It says it perfectly.
Do you feel like you always need guests around the table, and you can’t say no? Or do you believe in intentional family time like I’m describing?
Hi, I'm Sandy. Five years ago I stocked up on beautiful glasses from the Dollar Store. As I started writing about dinner parties, I realized that this “icon” portrays a great message. 
I love just having “us” at the table or playing a game or whatever. I think it’s important for all of us. I have one that has left the nest and at times like those I miss him deeply.
Love that sign/message!!
.-= Suzann from The Olive Cottage´s last blog ..Intentions =-.
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For me it’s more like intentional entertaining. We love to hang as a family and regroup together. You definitely need to find a nice balance.
Hugs
Kim
.-= Kim´s last blog ..Love is in the Air! =-.
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Yes! I love that sign too. Despite the young ages of my kiddos (2 and 3), time spent with just us around the table is so special.
.-= Maureen´s last blog ..Happy Second Birthday, Sweet Lulu! =-.
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Okay, I really want that sign!!! I wholeheartedly believe in intentional family time. Like you, I get that feeling too when we need to regroup. Because of having a college aged daughter, and two sons in their early teens, it is often difficult with our schedules. I have no problem putting family time on our calendar though because if I didn’t, it may not happen. And just like your sign says, around the table is where a lot of laughing, fun, and catching up on one another’s lives happens.
.-= Christy´s last blog ..I Don’t Know Much About Photography =-.
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It can be so difficult finding a balance between family time and entertaining. My heart does long for family time like you described at times.
Where was the sign purchased? I would love to add it to our home.
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Sandy Reply:
January 25th, 2010 at 8:09 am
Hi Kacee,
The plaque was purchased at Kohls. When you go to Kohls.com I believe they are sold out! Look around though …
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My son just recently “moved back home” after 4 and 1/2 years away from college. He is 23. It’s funny, but you’d think at that age, he wouldn’t want to hang with mom. I could tell during the holidays with all the entertaining going on that he was feeling overlooked. We try to eat dinner together at least once a week – a sit down homecooked meal. I’m trying to get him to cook more so that when he does move out on his own again, he’ll have more than 2 dishes that he can make.
.-= Sandi´s last blog ..PW’s Creamy Mashed Potatoes =-.
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I love love that sign!!!
sandy toe
.-= Sandy Toes´s last blog ..{Cheap}Labor =-.
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I feel like that with the kids friends being over. The weekends are filled with requests for sleepovers, or requests for them to go to their friends. I feel like no one really values family time anymore. I put my foot down and say it’s a “no sleepover/friends” weekend. It works.
.-= Jennifer´s last blog ..Knitting Bee =-.
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Hi, Sandy! I probably don’t entertain enough, but what we do have is a lot of my children’s friends over, which will go into the dinner hour a lot and then I feel the need to just be with family. I try to have a happy medium between what my mother did (no friends for supper! and rarely entertaining) to what I have seen in some friend’s home, which is everyone is welcome all the time!
Family time feeds one’s soul.
.-= Elizabeth´s last blog ..Menu Planning Monday =-.
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With my boys, just 2 and 6, family dinner is a hard thing. Most days it’s still just two kids at the kitchen table and me eating over the sink – HOWEVER – we are making more intentional efforts to gather in our formal dining room now, even if the meal is only 15 minutes long. We ask each other our “High/Low” of the day and try to begin instilling table manners and the like.
When we have guests, we always eat in the dining room, kids and adults alike, and no one is dismissed until the last peer is finished. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
.-= Adelle @ ready…GO!…get set´s last blog ..a rough night =-.
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Intentional family time all the way.
A recent request I’ve been praying, “Lord, help me be willing to be interruptable , to my family first and other’s second.”
For us it all begins at home…
.-= Donnetta´s last blog ..Wounds and Scars =-.
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What a wonderful sentiment.. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
.-= Cynthia´s last blog ..Decorating: My office in my bedroom =-.
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Oh Sandy! I have started reading Meditations for Messies by Sandra Felton and this really hits home for me. The devotional I just read was about a young cat chasing her tail b/c “organization was found in the tail” a matronly cat told her that if she would get her life in order and walk forward the tail would follow. I just thought about all of this talk about finding balance in all areas of life is so true but sometimes practically speaking…so hard. I tend to be very introverted though and err on the side of private family time. I like the saying, “God, Family, Country and in that order”. Maybe I’m using this as a crutch or an excuse ro support my introvertedness but 1 Timothy 3:5 says: “For if a man does not know how to rule his own household, how is he to take care of the church of God?”
.-= Ginger´s last blog ..Christ’s Bell =-.
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Love this post. It’s funny though… having moved a few months back & being without many friends, we are having the opposite situation = not entertaining enough. I totally agree on the importance of family time, and without it we just fall apart. Yet, now I’m missing the entertaining side!
Great post.
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Indy is only 7, but we have dinner together almost every night because I feel it’s important. Sometimes when Mr. HH is gone (he’s in the Army) I’ll be the cool mom and let him eat in the school room and watch TV. We home school, so I’m with him all day, but dinner is a time for is to sit back and relax and talk over a good meal. I ate dinner with my parents (I was an only child) almost every night up through high school (when I wasn’t working).
I’m not one of those people who looks like to have a lot of people around all the time. I do look forward to the occasional big get together, but not all the time. I get edgy when people are over all the time. I like it to just be us most of the time. Indy LOVES to have people over and is always begging me to have his friends over. I see this being an issue when he gets older. We’ll always have dinner together as much as possible though. I love your sign.
.-= Mom in High Heels´s last blog ..Who do you think you are? =-.
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Sandy, You know I’ve become a big fan of your blog. Had to stop by when I saw you linked up at Chatting at the Sky. I, too, love your sign! I just thought I’d let some of your other readers know that even though the sign is sold out at Kohls, I make custom canvases at my etsy shop which can be customized with any combination of words or pictures. I could do one just like this! They can visit me here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/myfineart
.-= Julie´s last blog ..My Whatchamacallit: The After =-.
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You are so right. Finding that balance is essential, and the family times build the relationships that we need to be hospitable to others. I love our “home alone” times together and would not trade them for anything.
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I actually have quite a bit of family time. I need to start saying yes to entertaining a lot more. I currently have as many chairs around my table as people in my family (6) so shared meals seem somewhat impossible!
.-= Jess @ Just a Blink´s last blog ..A Glimpe of Home =-.
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What a wonderful saying! I agree…I just love when our family gathers around our table and we re-group and re-energize!
Wendy
.-= Wendy´s last blog ..Traditional Focaccia Bread =-.
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