Brief Background: Family Day was first held in Canada in the province of Alberta in 1990. It is supposed to reflect the twin values of ‘family’ and ‘home’ which were important to the pioneers who founded Alberta, and it also give workers the opportunity to spend more time with their families.

Family Day was introduced in Saskatchewan in 2007 and in Ontario in 2008. One of the reasons for introducing Family Day was that there was a long period with no holidays, from New Year’s Day until Good Friday. (Source: www.timeanddate.com).

Today is “Family Day“. With our ever busy and highly pressured lifestyles, it seems appropriate that a special day be carved out to make us pause and focus on the truly important stuff: our loved ones – both family and close friends. In the words of actor Michael J. Fox, family is not just an important thing, it is everything!

Over the weekend, I made some phone calls to a few friends to wish them a ‘Happy Family Day’. One conversation in particular, had me in stitches and also gave me something important to think about. It was a talk with a friend who was a stay-at-home mom or as she’d like to describe herself; CEO of a thriving family enterprise!

Her response: A flippant ‘What’s Happy about the day?’ before I could get a word in, she continued heatedly,  ‘Forget about family day, how about a ‘Stay-at-home mom day’ to celebrate all the stay-at-home moms?

Or better still a ‘father and children stay home while mom spends the day by herself- a day to get out of these sweat pants and actually dress up, not have to worry about dinner, hang out with some real adults for once, visit a spa, go to the movie …..”

And then of course we both burst out laughing out loud. I think our compromise was to split family day into two parts; morning and afternoon would be all about the kids and evening would be all about quality time with your spouse (or even an alone time to simply refresh yourself.) 🙂

So ladies, what do you think?

We asked members of the WWN community how they are spending their day and these are some of the interesting and fun ways they’ve chosen to enjoy Family Day:

1. Dinner and a movie: Seeing a movie together as a family and eating out afterwards;

2. Visiting grand parents and spend the day sharing old stories over a big family meal;

3. Having a family picnic (if the weather permits) but if not then an indoor picnic;

4. Taking a family portrait with three generations; grandparents, parents and children;

5. Traveling for the long weekend (weekend getaway to the cottage, a trip to Niagara and south of the border for some shopping in New york);

6. Holding a ‘Whitney Houston themed party’ with all her top hits;

7. Inviting friends over for a karaoke night in;

8. A praise and worship session with extended family members for prayers, forgiveness, healing and new beginnings;

9. Holding a pizza and wings party with lots of good old fashioned family games;

10. A formal family dinner party with a black and white dress code.

Ladies, however you choose to spend the day, just remember that it is all about meaningful connections, being present and sharing great moments with loved ones. So turn off those computers! Co-create unforgettable memories and have a blast!

From all of us at Whole Woman Network, we wish you all a very Happy, blessed and wonderful family day!

Love, Light & Truth!

– Cyber-Hugs, Juliet ‘Kego Ume-Onyido

Related articles

• Family Day Weekend means time spent with family, away from the computer (atransparentlife.com)
• Infuriation of a Stay at Home Mom (20degreessouth.wordpress.com)
• It’s Family Day Weekend!! (thatmomblog.com)
• Family Day Toronto 2013: What’s open and closed (metronews.ca)