A Family Sundae

Last night for FHE we had ice cream sundaes. It was one of those impromptu preparations five minutes before FHE started kind of deals (which is generally how we do FHE anyway, but this time we wanted ice cream to go with it.)

I'm sure this isn't an original thought, but we used the sundaes as an analogy for families, so I thought I would share the idea.

The ice cream represents a family. It's good by itself, because families are great and ice cream is great. But we can always make our ice cream -and families- better.

So we added chocolate syrup. That represented love. Because love makes families better, just like ice cream is always better with chocolate syrup.

Then we added M&Ms. (It was a personal preference - you don't have to use M&Ms, you could use nuts, or toffee pieces, or sprinkles, or whatever.) This represents kindness. Because my children have a particularly hard time remembering to be nice to each other.

Lastly, we added whipped cream because no sundae is complete without it. This represented forgiveness. Because that's a very important part of being a strong and happy family.

And when we were done, our ice cream (and family) was better and exceptionally tasty, and we got to make jokes like, "Oh no - you just ate your whole family!!" when we swallowed the last bite.

You can change out any of the toppings or values they represent, but it's an FHE that the whole family will enjoy. (And so far my kids have retained some of the lesson, which is saying a lot!)