A special meal once a week or month is a great idea to build a strong family. Studies show that families that regularly eat together are more stable. Last week, I wrote about our family’s Sunday feast. This week, I want to show you how you can start your own family tradition, and how the kids can help.

• Location, location, location

When we first started our feast, we had my parents, my brother’s family, and my brother-in-law’s family involved. Even though the other women involved would have liked to host the feast sometimes, my husband knew that we could only establish a weekly tradition by having it in a central location. So we grit our teeth, and insisted that we have it at our house. Period.

• Menu

It is a good idea to plan what you will serve every week. Decide how many meals you can plan ahead, and post the menu. Extended family and friends can consult the menu and know what to expect and they can decide what they want to bring or add to the menu.

• Don’t count on extended family

Everyone else might not have your vision. That’s ok. Don’t count on your extended family to carry the tradition. You know why you’re doing it, and stick to your guns, even if it’s just you and your family. When we started, my extended family was pretty dedicated to the feast, but eventually they stopped coming. We continued the feast on our own, and now we expect some extended family coming every other week or so.

• Put the kids to work

Small children can be taught to set the table. If you need to move chairs, have the children do that. Commit yourself to teaching your children to do at least one recipe each feast night—it lightens your load, and gives the kids such confidence!

• It’s the extras that make it a special feast

If your normal dinner consists of three courses, make four or five for feast. That way, everyone knows that this is a special dinner.

• You can’t go wrong with fresh baked bread

Fresh rolls go over big at our house. They make the feast special, and they are an easy way to incorporate the children. Even young children can help by kneading the dough, and it’s so much fun for them. It’s hard to over knead most yeast bread recipes. They can also shape the dough into rolls. Don’t stress over neatness. You can even put balls of dough into a muffin tin to shape the rolls.

• Don’t forget dessert

A special dessert is another way to differentiate your feast from an ordinary dinner. My oldest daughter rarely lets me prepare dessert any more. She likes to try out brand new recipes from her dessert cookbooks, and this is something everyone looks forward to.

• Sometimes you need an icebreaker

The great thing about having a feast is the fellowship. If you’re not used to sitting down as a family, it might help to have an icebreaker to start conversation. You can get people to open up by asking questions like, “What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you on the playground?” Try telling a joke or a funny story to get people to loosen up and get used to each other. If you’re too formal with your feast, you may kill the tradition before it even gets started. I was guilty of this in the early days, especially when I tried to impress my mother. Just the act of doing the feast every week ended up impressing her.

• Take an occasional break, but don’t let it break your tradition.

We were invited to someone else’s house for dinner during the early days of our feast. I was determined to not honor many of those invitations. I didn’t want to get out of the habit of serving our family and friends in this way.

• After your tradition is established, it may be easier to invite others to share it with you. When we started our feast, we started inviting friends right away, before we’d had our routine down. It worked out ok, but it was exhausting and pretty chaotic. Now we can handle bigger feasts, like Thanksgiving—with a full house—with ease.

And that is the hidden benefit of the feast. We are more comfortable entertaining visitors now. It used to be such a strain to have people over. I never knew what to do; I felt so awkward. But now since I’ve been preparing a Sunday feast every week, it’s nothing to make cookies or coffee to share with company, and making small talk is much easier as well. Give a weekly feast a try. You and your family will love it!