Making Sundays Special

“I want my boys to love Sunday, to find it a peaceful, pleasant day, when they can rest from common study and play, yet enjoy quiet pleasures, and learn, in simple ways, lessons more important than any taught in school” (Louisa May Alcott, Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo’s Boys [Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1901], pp. 29–30).

A year ago, when our children were 5, 3 1/2, and 2, I felt the need to begin making Sunday a special day for them. Mother Bhaer’s “Sunday closet,” as she described her “shelves filled with picture books, paint boxes, architectural blocks, little diaries, and materials for letter writing” in Little Men, inspired me to develop our own gospel-related project.

Family home evening gave us an opportunity to discuss the plan, and we began to collect picture books, diaries, writing and drawing paper, and of course the inevitable crayons, pencils, glue, and blunt-end scissors. We included religious flannel-board stories (covering the pictures with clear adhesive plastic for durability) and found that our youngsters were soon telling the stories on Sunday afternoons. Our “Sunday closet”—or box or drawer—is especially for that day, and from its contents our children are learning to enjoy “quiet pleasures” on the Sabbath.—Bonnie Morgan Walker, Ferndale, Washington

Illustrated by Phyllis Luch