Remember those easy nights of calling friends and saying, let’s just meet up? And then ambling towards your agreed spot and sitting together, laughing, eating something, talking some more and having that feeling that things are GOOD and EASY. And then walking or driving home. It’s late, and even though you know it’s a Tuesday night, and you’ll be tired in the morning, it was worth it.
Fast forward to socializing after having children…
It’s a tad different. It can feel like such an effort and work and then SO not the relaxed and chilled out experiences of other times. And somehow the accumulation of less sleep, a lot more moving pieces and extra personalities in the mix makes it feel like the ease of socializing is WAY beyond reach.
Soon after Z was born we hosted a few dinner parties - that usually involved sleepovers - but as kids got bigger, it got more challenging - our 3 year olds weren’t falling asleep in our arms any more and then with a new baby it all became too much. So we just stopped.
That is until I read about a crappy dinner - the author, Kelley Powell, explains how she and her best friend unexpectedly lived in the same city but after kids never saw each other, that is, until her friend came back from Canada with a whole new perspective. The crappy dinner! I was struck by its simplicity and brilliance (and in love with the fact that it came from Canada and my favourite province, Saskatchewan).
There are a few rules and as you may know about me already, I like rules!
No housework is to be done before a crappy dinner
The menu must be simple and not involve a special grocery shop
You must wear whatever you happen to have on
No hostess gifts allowed
You must act surprised when your friend and her family just arrives at your door. (optional)
I realized on writing that I’ve actually adapted these rules for our lives and my own tendencies..
My own simple rules for a crappy dinner:
No cleaning whatsoever
No apologizing for the chaos
Eat whatever you would normally be eating (and if that means other people bring the thing they were going to eat too… to make it possible to eat together - do it!)
The wonderful result of the crappy dinner approach is that we see our friends way more often. We have crappy dinner parties on a whim and we have been more intertwined in the real life realities of our friends instead of living on the surface of what social media might be presenting. If things are hard for a friend, we are much more likely to say: let’s get together! Come over! Or even more of a twist, “We are going to bring dinner to YOU. Stay put, a crappy dinner is coming your way!”
A big reason we can be so laissez-faire about the whole dinner thing is THANKS TO OUR MEAL CO-OP EXPERIMENT - because usually we have dinner already made in the fridge! And often, if we have a big crowd, I’ll just warm up TWO dinners and we’ll have a surprise buffet of deliciousness. As a backup, I keep a few packs of sausages in the freezer and noodles in the pantry - so that in a pinch, I can warm up a meal, slice some sausages and fry them in a pan, and make noodles. DONE.
Another powerful result of the crappy dinner… I feel like it models realistic and healthy expectations for what it means to be resilient as well as social with kids. I was talking about the crappy dinner brilliance with a wise friend who is in her 70s and she started laughing when I explained my three rules - she said, “we just called that: Dinner!” Somehow with all sorts of advancements and technology to make things easier, we’ve let go of some of the easiest ways to feel connection. No pressure, just eating.
As I finish writing this I’m thinking about my friend Sarah, and how we have both embraced the crappy dinner for own mental health - lowering expectations, increasing the laughter and connection in our lives. I’m sending her a text right now and we’ll squeeze in a dinner somehow in the next few days, have our kids run around making messes and catch up as we warm up dinner in the kitchen. And life is good.