I don’t usually eat meals in front of the TV. (Hubby often has lunch there.) A few times a year we’ll watch TV at kitchen table, watching something on TV since our kitchen and family room are really one big room across the back of the house. Somewhere in the empty nest years (maybe Covid?) we switched to dining room for default dinner location. It’s actually just as close to the stove/microwave as the kitchen table.
Snacks in the family room? Well the traditional house rules say that food stays in the kitchen. (The rule was often ignored.). But with the kids gone, all sorts of snack food gets eaten on the family room couch. If I have evening snack, it’s sometimes at the breakfast bar (where I can see/hear the tv) and sometimes at the couch.
We don’t generally eat in front of the TV. Exceptions might be made for something like the hockey winter classic or a big awards show and then I make finger foods/heavy hors d’oeuvres and we snack. Fancier than it sounds, it’s usually just a mish mosh of appetizers from Trader Joe’s. Mac and cheese balls and brie pastry puff things.
I love to watch Chopped and it usually makes me hungry. I used to make myself a little ice cream sundae but - this sounds so sad - I have found lately that dairy in the PM is a bad idea.
Once our kids went off to college, H and I ate most of our meals in front of the TV. We return to the table when the kids visit, and we did pretty formal dinners for friends and/or coworkers for years. I need to keep my feet elevated when sitting, so that’s our excuse for eating meals on the couch. I now have half a dozen ottomans throughout the house, but they’re awkward to use under the dining table.
We tend to do all meals in our living room in chairs watching TV - whatever taped show/movie or taped news that we want to choose for that particular meal. Breakfast or lunch are usually news (BBC/DW/Focus on Europe or similar). Supper we rotate choices. No one watches individual shows or movies.
We did this all through our kids growing up lives.
It’s the only time we watch TV on average days and we only have the one TV in our house - a smaller one at that.
No regrets at all. Our dinner table is more of a shelf in the kitchen.
We ate dinner at the table every night when the kids were growing up and there were always long long conversations. We have a large house and a large dining table but no small eating nook. Now that the kids are gone I find it very depressing for my husband and I to eat there by ourselves. We still do eat there a couple times a week but i am not a fan. There is a remodel in our nearish future and my top priority is a very small eating nook.
All of that to say…DH frequently eats his dinner in front of the tv. I often dont eat anybdinner but when i do eat its a later dinner in front of the tv. If I eat dinner at 8 I am far less likey to snack.
When I am weak…its a small bowl of popcorn with a large serving of salt. I know.
I’m among the fortunate that my cardiologist told me to eat more salt. Some of us need it more than others apparently. Symptoms are awful without it and my blood pressure is still quite normal without any meds, so I fit the profile. I keep some high salt foods around for when I get low due to too much “healthy” eating.
Our long talks with the kids were doing chores (usually farm), playing games (a very common occurrence) or traveling, even just to town to go shopping or whatever. Meals were always together, except breakfast on school days, and were our relaxation time - hence TV for dinner and a show.
