Making Family Dinner Memorable with #DarkForDinner

How to make your family dinner more memorable with #DarkForDinner. Plus a printable list of questions to ask your family!

This post is sponsored by Dixie.

Last Friday, I told you guys all about Dixie’s #DarkForDinner campaign. It is a movement that encourages families to be more present in the moments that matter most and spend more meaningful time together, especially during dinner. #DarkForDinner wants families to put away all electronics (including cell phones!) and turn off computers and TVs during dinner in order to really appreciate the time together as a family, distraction-free.

I love the message behind the movement, and I want to help spread the word. The campaign started last month and goes for a few more weeks, so it’s not too late to join if you haven’t yet!

Yesterday, my family participated in #DarkForDinner and had our electronics-free dinner. It was awesome! We all sat down at the table together with no TV in the background, no phones in the room, and no distractions from anything electronic.

It has been a few weeks since we’ve all been able to sit down together as a family for dinner at our own table. The Mister was back in Iowa for some medical school tests and classes, then we had a family reunion in Utah, we were all home for the Fourth of July, and then the Mister had to leave for a few more days to go to Philadelphia for some more medical school tests. He got back last Wednesday, and it was so nice to have our first family dinner together again without any electronics.

We had grilled chicken, some fresh cut fruit, and a spinach poppy seed salad. It was delicious and I loved getting to be back in the kitchen cooking for our whole family after a few weeks of traveling. I missed it!

I decided to make a printable list of 20 questions to keep in the table so we could keep the conversation going and get to know each other better. Medical school sometimes takes over our lives, and it can be hard to talk about anything else. I thought it would be fun to ask each other some new questions and focus on each other instead of school for our #DarkForDinner meal. You can download your free printable for your meal here.

Even thought we couldn’t really ask our kids these questions, it was still a lot of fun. I revealed that I would love to have a pet dolphin, and it was no surprise that my husband would love to be a character from The Lord of the Rings. And I’m pretty sure if Little J could’ve answered #19, he would’ve said play tag, because getting chased is his favorite thing to do.

It was nice to be able to put aside all of our electronics and focus on each other. We are definitely going to keep up this new tradition of going #DarkForDinner every Sunday, and once we master that, I would love to try and do it for every meal. My family is the most important thing to me, and if I can have a better relationship with them because we have family dinners together every night, you know I’m going to make an effort to make sure we sit down together and unplug our devices.

Dixie’s #DarkForDinner campaign continues next Sunday, so if you didn’t get the message in time (or you forgot!) then join in and go dark next Sunday. And when you do join (because duh, of course you will) here are some more tips to make sure your #DarkForDinner meal is memorable:

Making Family Dinner Memorable:

• Get your kids involved in the cooking.
• Make your family’s favorite dish.
• Keep the fun going after dinner. Play a board game or have a special dessert.
• Use Dixie paper products so you won’t have to spend time doing dishes after the meal!
• Set the table nicer than usual. Use a tablecloth, placemats, and cloth napkins.
• Use homemade placemats decorated by your kids.

No matter how you do it, just make sure you go #DarkForDinner this coming Sunday. It will bring your family closer together and help remind you of what’s really important in your life.