Really, Sacrament Meeting is only 60-75 minutes in length. Do we really need all the food?
Apparently, yes. Especially if you’ve got kids.
One of my favorite Sacrament Meeting stories comes from my friend Sally. When her (now teenaged) daughter was about four years old, they, as a family, would often go out to restaurants for dinner. One Sunday, as the deacons passed their pew to begin bread distribution to those in the back of the chapel, Sally’s daughter stood up and yelled, “Hey, where’s my waiter?”
As a new mother I recall sitting behind a woman who pulled a full sandwich out of her bag to give to her preschool-aged daughter; at first I thought it was a bit much, but then I realized that, with church having a start time of 12:00 noon, it was lunch time for this little girl. Each week I watched her have her own private picnic in the chapel.
Another friend of mine recently told me that, as a single man, he and his buddies would bring beef jerky to sacrament meeting for a snack. Gross.
Over the years, I’ve tried out many snacks (for the kids, natch) for the first hour of church, starting with the staples (not actual staples, duh): Cheerios, fruit snacks, goldfish crackers. I’ve learned a few things, so let me share some wisdom for those of you preparing your Sunday Bag.
1. Whatever snack you bring, put it in a plastic bag. Crackers come in their own wrapper, yes, but those wrappers are LOUD.
2. No sugary cereal. This leads to sticky fingers, which leads to a bigger mess than you’ve already got if you’re bringing food to church. I know your kids’ favorite cereal is Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but do yourself a favor and bring the plain Cheerios instead.
3. Bring extra to share with the kids around you. Even though you may have the EXACT SAME FOOD as the family sitting behind you, your kids will want theirs and their kids will want yours. Everybody knows that other people’s food tastes better, right? So bring extra and get ready to share.
4. Leave the juice and milk at home, and put water in sippy cups instead. Water dries and doesn’t stain, and isn’t sticky and doesn’t stink.
5. Sisters: if you bring saltines (even “for your kids”) and eat them during church, you’re not hiding your pregnancy, you’re announcing it.
6. CLEAN UP YOUR MESS.
We’re the family bringing lunch to Sacrament meeting! I’ve gotten some strange looks from people at times when I pull out sandwiches for the kids, but our church is 11:00 – 2:00. It’s too early to feed the kids lunch before we go, but they can’t wait until after church to eat. (They’re 8, 6, 4, and 1… so most of them are still too little to wait it out.)
A few weeks ago another sister came up to me after Sacrament and said she’d seen me passing out the sandwiches. I braced myself, afraid she was about to criticize. Instead, she said that she brought sandwiches each week, too. Like me, she always tried not to let anyone see for fear of someone being annoyed that we brought something more than the typical Cheerios. Happily, we’ve now bonded over our Sacrament Meeting sandwiches and sit in adjacent rows each week. And yes… we always clean up the mess!
We have church at 11am and our kids are 8, 6, and 2, and we don’t bring any food. I just make a big brunch that we eat around 10 and they’re just fine. My rule has always been that they only get snacks when they’re about 9 months to 24 months- once they hit 18 months they get snacks in nursery, and I figure by the time they’re 2 they can survive without eating for 2-3 hours (most infants can survive without eating for that long!).
I think to each his own, though- this is what works for us, so that’s what we do. And my 6-year-old brings gum to chew- she has a serious snack addiction even outside of church so we’ve found chewing gum to be a nice compromise. 🙂
Our stake presidency has banned snacks from the chapel…even for kids. He said “if your kids are hungry take them out to the foyer.” Seemed a little harsh, but a lot of people had been careless and leaving huge messes.
We need to keep Sacrament Meeting special. There really shouldn’t be action figures, hand-held video games, snacks/lunch in the chapel. It has been dedicated as the Lord’s house. How can we expect our children to learn about reverence and sacrifice if we treat the chapel like our living room? I think we underestimate our children and their ability. We shield our children from any kind of discomfort and make them so high maintenance. It’s a disservice to them. Help them develop coping skills. Feed them before you come or take them into the kitchen.
I think you have missed the true meaning of snackrament..This is a meeting held by those of us that find our minds wander during bad sunday school lessons, forcing us to break the sabbath and go to 7-11 or Caseys or Mavrac and end the suffering by partaking in a carbonated beverage of choice and perhaps some salted snack treat…