One winter weekend over two decades ago, while slogging through our usual winter slump, my husband George pitched a tent in the living room and fired up John Wayne movies for our two young boys.
Together, they cooked baked beans and hotdogs and made decaf coffee on a portable stove. They wore long johns and cowboy hats, and I don’t remember anyone bathing. The main attraction: Jiffy Pop popcorn with its steamed aluminum foil dome. It was only supposed to be for one night, but it lasted all weekend. They asked to repeat it for weekends to come, building on activities, to include constructing a Lego cowboy ranch and watching “Toy Story.”
What once were freezing stretches of winter boredom turned into the thrilling beginning of a new family tradition—“theme nights”—with every weekend a party. While the main goal was to creatively engage the kids, George and I confess we felt more motivated to amuse ourselves.
Building our activities around themes felt satisfying, much like listening to a concept album with a unifying thread running through the tracks, as opposed to a collection of unrelated songs. The anticipation of our theme nights added excitement, with elaborate planning giving us something to bond over.
To get your creative juices flowing, here is a sampling of our family’s top favorite theme nights.
Circus: Come one, come all to see my daughter decorate the living room with her elephant collection, rearrange the furniture into seating, and charge her older brothers for tickets. From a makeshift concession stand, she sold Pennywise ghost pepper chicken (bites back), popcorn, soft pretzels and brightly colored candy.
Mysteries: We worked on a puzzle and watched “Clue.” Menu: chili with mystery meats, vegetable surprise, European Kinder Eggs with toys in the centers, and cookies from the international aisle that looked mysterious.
Popeye: We watched the movie and cartoon shorts, serving spinach, Wimpy burgers, sweet peas, onions fried in olive oil, I-yam-what-I-yams, and single-serving chicken pot pies. (Get it?)
Beatles: We watched “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Yellow Submarine,” building a fort to symbolize the Cavern Club. Menu: “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club” sandwiches with “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Cold Turkey,” “fish and finger pies” with “Peas Peas Me,” Montélimar nougat, Coca-Cola, spinal crackers with marmalade, and glass-onion flavored peas, which we gave a chance. I would claim I’m only here for the wordplay, but…
I’m truly here for the feats of strength.
Seinfeld: We invited friends to play our “Seinfeld” trivia game, complete with social media trash-talking as a prelude. Menu: Atomic sub on marble rye with spicy mustard and cured deli meat sliced thinly enough to slide under a door, so many shrimp that the ocean called, a big salad with fusilli pasta and Yankee beans, chicken salad on rye with coleslaw, poppyseed bagels basted with butter, SAL-SA with chips (no double-dipping), pretzels salty enough to make us thirsty, Mackinaw peaches, muffin tops, Jujyfruits, Junior Mints, Twix and Snickers with a knife and fork.
Quarantine: Our final family theme night was March 27, 2020. To celebrate the “two-week” lockdown, we watched “Castaway.” We ate quarantine submarine sandwiches with a side of creamed quarantine Florentine cooked from a bag of spinach that was about to spoil. Someone brought the volleyball net set into the house for ambience. We had just moved, and Wilson had escaped from the box. As of this writing, Wilson is still missing. It holds true that we don’t know when we will do something for the last time.
Don’t feel too sad for us, though. George and I may be empty nesters, but we now have grandchildren to entertain. We might find enough spark to revive what has become, oddly, not our weirdest family tradition.
Instituting your own family theme nights wouldn’t be difficult, even if you think your family isn’t creative. Start with a show you want to watch or food you’d like to eat. As your family adds on more details, listen to the avalanche of ideas spin into a theme. Or use a simple theme to start. Order pizza and stream an Italian movie, like “Pinocchio” or “Luca.” Toast the weekend with fancy bottles of S.Pellegrino. If your kids are older, find your “Godfather” trilogy on DVD and play a drinking game every time a character mentions food. (“Take the gun. Leave the cannoli.”)
Perhaps, theme nights will become a well-loved and, with time, well-remembered family tradition, like ours is today.
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