"You'd better get your booty in here now."

In our church we are advised to set aside Monday night for Family Home Evening.  Family home evening is for everyone, including recently married couples, fathers and mothers with children, single parents with children, parents who have no children at home, single adults in home evening groups, and those who live alone or with roommates.  The First Presidency said: "We promise you great blessings if you will follow the Lord's counsel and hold regular family home evenings.  We pray constantly that parents in the Church will accept their responsibility to teach and exemplify gospel principles to their children."  A suggested outline for family home evening follows:

• Opening song (by the family)
• Opening prayer (by a family member)
• Poem or scripture reading (by a family member)
• Lesson (by the father, mother, or an older child)
• Activity (led by a family member and with all family members participating)
• Closing song (by the family)
• Closing prayer (by a family member)
• Refreshments

I grew up in a home that had family home evenings every Monday night.  My memory of this time is fairly ideal.  I don't remember complaining or making any negative contributions whatsoever as a child.  Okay, I do remember arguing with my Dad one time because he wouldn't let me go to an activity with my friends on family night.  Other than that I'm sure it was perfect.  We gathered around lovingly while one of my parents gave an inspiring lesson.  We sang "Love at Home" in harmony.  Well, sometimes we sang "Oh We're From Nairobi", and "Down By the Old Mill Stream,"  but those were definitely sung in harmony.  We played "Here comes the Jolly Butcher Boy Seeking For His Trade," a marvelous game that I'd be happy to explain to anyone who wants to know.  Then we had delicious refreshments that we took turns choosing.  Well, maybe once when it was my turn I bought a box that had cheese cake on the front, but we needed a crust, cream cheese, etc. to actually make cheesecake.  We did not have cheesecake for refreshments that night.

You can imagine my surprise when I was the mom and ready to take my responsibility to teach my lovely children about the love of God and families at our weekly family home evenings and things were a little...less than ideal.  One Monday night, when my first 2 children were 3.5 and 2 yrs. old., we invited a young couple that hadn't been blessed with children yet to share the evening with us.  I thought maybe their FHE's were boring.  I carefully prepared the boys in their parts so their contribution would be meaningful.  It was time for them to perform.  They wiggled and giggled and bugged until there was no going back to the lesson.  The adults were giggling a bit also, well, not really me.  This hadn't gone according to my picture at all.  (As if that's part of parenting...ever.) At least the evening wasn't boring, except the part where I was telling my children to "stand up straight," "say it nicely," "stop pushing..."  I adjusted my picture a bit since I had grown up in a family of mostly girls, and I was raising a family of mostly boys, and they were children, and I probably didn't really have a very clear memory of what FHE was like for my parents when I was a child anyway.

Emergency Preparedness lesson.
"Let's try out our emergency ladder
that's been under the bed for months."

When I talk to my children about their FHE experiences I realize that one of the most important benefits of regular family night is the traditions born from many nights together.  When my children were little I played a tape of children's songs  by Janeen Brady.  One of the songs is called "Hey, Everybody it's Family Night."  The song starts with the title and then continues, "You'd better take the phone off the hook.  Hey everybody it's family night.  I've already got the family night book."  It goes on with some more happy words, but the Stoker version evolved and stuck.  Every Paul and Laurie Stoker child would agree that when it's time for Family Home Evening we sing, "Hey Everybody It's Family Night, you'd better get your booty in here now!"

The traditional treat is ice cream, sometimes with toppings, sometimes without.  The most common opening songs are "I Am and Child of God." and "Love at Home."  I love the talk in General Conference where Julie B. Beck asked her father why they were singing "Love at Home" again.  He answered, "When you learn lesson one, we'll move on to lesson two."  One of the sad realities of our family night is there is always some teenager with homework issues.  They are pretty sure they don't have time to gather with their family (see above promise for courage in this situation).  More often than I'd like to admit the opening song has been,  "Listen to the Still Small Voice," not for the message but because it is the shortest song in the songbook.

No child mentioned anything about the lessons when recounting their FHE memories, but we always have them.  Sometimes someone shares a story from a church magazine.  We have highlighted General Conference talks.  Lessons have been taught from the Gospel Art Scripture Pictures or something someone learned in church.  My favorite lessons have been given by the children.  I remember once when the big brothers all took turns teaching Gabe (the youngest) basic gospel principles to make sure he knew everything he needed to know for life.    Another part of our reality is there is always someone from the previously mentioned "academic-crisis-camp" that says,"I hope the lesson is short."

Apparently the most memorable aspect of Family Home Evening is the game.  The rule is: Everyone has to play.  There has been a favorite game for each season of our family's evolution.  We started out playing a lot of "Duck, duck, goose."  (In Minnesota this is called "Duck, duck, grey duck.")  We played  field hockey.  I knew we were making progress when we could play without someone sitting on the deck for high sticking.  Four-square was big for a while, but that was awkward because all the neighborhood could hear us arguing over rules and points. (Love at home)  Big Booty was another favorite, mostly because it's really fun to say, "Big Bootyyyyy, big booty, oh yeah."

Big Booty with the Johnson cousins

When we were once again overpowered by the homework junkies/responsible students there was a lot of pressure to play a short game after our short lesson.  The game of choice was "Dip, dip, dip."  We huddled in a circle, stomped and chanted "Dip, dip, dip.   Dip, dip, dip and then looked at someone in the circle.  If you looked at someone looking at you, you both were out.  The last one standing was the victor.  We could play 3 rounds of this game in about 7 minutes.

Thankfully we are now in a phase with a youngest child who will have none of this short-game-nonsense.  He wants his fair share of family fun.  He feels like he missed out on much of the family action and is slowly being deserted by his older siblings.  He realizes that very soon it will be down to him and the parents.  He'll have all the jobs and none of the fun.  I remind him that he'll have all the toys too.  It's a small consolation for being left with no one to play with.  So he insists that we have proper game time.  Right now, we play a lot of "Perudo."  It's funny how with our fewer numbers we can all be home, but not together.  It's FHE and family scripture study that brings us onto the couches, shoulder to shoulder.  Some of our best conversations happen  between "Let's have a prayer" and the actual prayer.  I love sitting around with my family playing Perudo or Dutch Blitz, and without family night, how would we know when the games begin?  And you know what?  Andrew gave a really nice lesson this last week.  What a blessing.