Sunday.

The husband is cooking bacon in the kitchen with "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" playing on the radio via NPR. The cats are looking at him, needy because they equate Sunday bacon smells with their "bacon Sunday," a special can of wet cat food that they receive upon the conclusion of the husband's "parade of cats." This is when he walks in a circle around the apartment and then puts the food down. The cats don't follow him as willingly as they used to but they do tolerate the rite.

The daughter is sitting at the wood chopping blog/wine rack in the kitchen with the husband's computer trying a new function in the MMO role playing game World of Warcraft, discussing how they can disguise their characters and fool the other players. I have no idea what they are talking about.  I want to learn too but am so far behind them that I am lost in the interactive dust.  They try to explain it to me. I am just happy to be here with them whether I am included in this facet of their lives or not. I tell them it looks pretty.

These are good noises. Smells. Sounds. It is Sunday, a day that we have made more and more sacred as it became apparent that three of us were living less than quality lives as a family. We made a pact, while we are still a family, that we will do everything in our power to not make plans outside of our unit. We eat dinner at the table together with a home cooked meal. We play board games. At night we have been watching tv together.

Most religions have some form of Sabbath. A day to rest. A day to go to church, pray, reflect. Just stop. It usually comes with some kind of punishment for not respecting the creator du jour. It was worship driven but the older that I get, the more I feel like it was also created for a social need. A reason for the family to come together and just be. For the world to stop coming in through every portal possible, for thoughts of stress to stop, for a human being to be given a chance to be just that, human. And, if you had one, be truly a member of your family. A chance to value each other and our time together in peace.

For a long time previous to this, we were living an existence where we would hang out in separate rooms, playing on our computers, reading, watching television. We would do things outside of the house occasionally but we never ate a meal together at the dinner table. Our plans were sporadic and lazy. The house was messier.  We weren't trying. We were accepting that this was the way our lives were until eventually our lives together began to disintegrate.

Bacon Sunday came from a happy accidental meal. Someone bought Blackforest bacon from Whole Foods and we loved it. We wanted it more. It became our Sunday thing. It was nice. Something we missed when we went out of town or one of us went to go do something else. We began to reevaluate the health of our family. We never ate together. Our child did not have structure. Unless we were traveling together in a car, there was not regular conversations as a group and our sense of stability was completely askew. Bacon Sunday was not only our favorite collective ritual, it was our only collective ritual with just father, mother and daughter. Us.

Today we are getting a Christmas tree. We wanted to make it an elaborate pursuit to find the very best. But, for right now, it looks like we have lost some of our zip on the subject. But that's okay. We still have to decorate it and I am insisting that we score a new game to play this week, something that we can kick the father's ass with (another part of Sunday is trying to beat the father who wins with unabashed huberus). Tonight we have a nice steak. Maybe find a movie to watch or just television. The three of us together, not in different rooms like we used to  be. And at the end, we will go to sleep happy for this single calm day when we can be together, appreciating the gift of family without stress and knowing that at the end of next week, Sunday will be there.