Quick explanation: In
our church FHE (Family Home Evening) is one evening a week (usually Mondays)
where the family gets together. Typical
format is opening prayer, song, review the week’s schedule, short lesson,
closing prayer and then dessert.
Recently we have had lessons on everything from the scriptures, to
family history, what to do in an emergency, or we have done an activity
together like climbing. The whole thing
is maybe 20-30 minutes.
That being said ...
I have never had a FHE end quite the way it did two nights
ago.
Jeff gave a lesson on money and budgeting, which is not the
most exciting topic. Now we normally
try to keep the lessons short, but this time it went long. I knew we blew our time limit when the kids questions
grew increasingly random, the girls became fidgety, and Erik with glazed eyes
put his head on the placemat still on the kitchen table.
Trying to wrap it up quickly, Jeff asked Erik to pick a
closing song. He raised his head (which
now had the pattern of the placemat imprinted on his forehead) and said, “Take
on Me” (a song from the 80’s by A-ha).
I probably then said it should be a church song, and so Claire
and Jeff began to sing a primary song really fast to just end everyone’s
misery. At this point Erik wandered
out of the room and came back (smiling) with an ipod and speaker. The primary song was now over and “Take on
Me” began to play. Erik turned the
volume way WAYYY up and he began to sing. Within seconds Claire and Megan came back to
life and started dancing. I did my head-bob-dance and lip synced along.
All three kids then danced to (and belted out) “Living on a
Prayer” by Bon Jovi, some 21Pilots and finished with Coldplay.
