Grand Magazine - September/October 2008 - (Page 43)

Georgia wasn’t one of the kids out smoking and drinking, and neither were her children, even though she had a full-time job (and still does). Because Georgia raised her children to know “6 o’clock means dinner,” today daughter Kali and son-in-law Chris bring Georgia’s granddaughter Melina to dinner every Sunday night at 6 p.m. Without fail. “It took Chris a while to get used to that,” Georgia laughs. “Now he knows it doesn’t matter what you do all day, Sunday dinner’s at 6.” Georgia Hart is proving that even grandparents who can’t finagle nightly family dinners can have a powerful influence. And, with the Greek influence, a simple Sunday night meal becomes an extended family affair, the type of meal Georgia ate every night growing up. “For Greeks, everything does revolve around food,” Georgia says. “We all lived together here when I was growing up; and as everyone married off, they still came back to eat. When you have a background like that, if you don’t keep the traditions, you lose it.” She draws them to the table with pastichio—ground beef and egg noodles baked in a creamy white cheese sauce, and with her dolmades—grape leaves stuffed with ground meat, rice, lemon and herbs. A regular at Georgia’s Sunday table is her mother, Melina’s great-grandmother. And so are Georgia’s cousin and his 4-year-old son, Nico, on whom Georgia “practiced grandparenting” before Melina came along. For both Nico and Melina, Georgia considers Sunday dinner as her once-a-week opportunity to keep the traditions of their Greek heritage alive. A study completed in 2005 at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (NCASA) at Columbia University revealed that caregiving adults who don’t bother with family dinners are five times as likely to say they have poor relationships with their children, more than twice as likely to say they don’t know the name of their child’s teacher, and one-and-ahalf times more likely to not know the names of “What do you mean, you don’t have to be home for dinner?!” in special ways is fun for most children. You can get as involved as you like with fancy paper origami folds translated to napkins— or make it as simple as folding a square napkin into a triangle, rolling it up from wide to pointy end, folding it in half lengthwise, and placing it inside the drinking glass at each setting. the grandkids can draw from a list of things needed to set the table for dinner by playing pick up stix (where a yellow stick represents dishes, green represents glasses, etc.), by drawing playing cards or writing out items on separate index cards and picking them out of a hat. A relay (not a relay race!) is a great way to work as partners. Or set the table to music; let each grandchild, choosing her own song, dance from the kitchen to the dining room and vice versa (while empty-handed!). You can work off energy and build up an appetite. Folding napkins Find a book or Web site that shows how cultures from around the world set their tables differently, and then build a theme night complete with a menu and decorations that match the culture. It’s a lighthearted way to learn and understand about others. For both setting and clearing the table, lively banter throughout dinner is a big part of the joy we’re helping to create. I asked my grandnephew what “joking around the table” meant to him, and he said it meant turning angry or embarrassing moments into funny situations, such as when a bully picked on him at school that day; so over dinner, everyone got to take turns recreating the situation to have funny things happen, like tripping with a whippedcream-topped snack pie in their hand and have it go all over the bully’s face. (And then I added—because I encourage happy endings for all!—the bully smiles broadly because he just loves the taste of the snack pie.) SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2008 GRAND 43 Once the meal is on the table,

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Grand Magazine - September/October 2008

Grand Magazine- September/October 2008 Grand View:�Priceless Contents Isn't it Grand?: Picture Perfect Winners!: GRANDparent of the Year Grand Central Toddler Town:�Grand-proofing Ask Grand:�Two Tired Tips on Teens: The Bar Mitzvah Trips Just So We Know:�BPA Not Our BFF Full House-Full Heart-Full Time:�Confessions of a Backyard Grand Grandbloggers: It Takes a Village Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Family + Food = Fun On the Cover: Nora Roberts A Fine Romance Everything Was Fine Until You Showed Up Happy Big Sister Day Looking Grand:�Elementary, My Dear All in the Family:�Pasta, Present and Future Reunions:�Doubleheader Inspirations:�Grandpa's Violin Grand Bazaar More to the Story Grand Finale:�Long Ago Under the Sun

Grand Magazine - September/October 2008

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