Savouring the Saturday morning

Who doesn’t love a Saturday morning? It’s the unencumbered weekend morning — it’s generally your first day of weekend freedom. It’s the morning where you might mix errands and leisurely get-togethers with friends and families with some hard-earned me-time in the form of shopping, exercising, pampering, whatever does it for you.

I thought I’d take this post to look back and celebrate some happy Saturday morning rituals throughout my  life. And while my time frame for “Saturday mornings” has changed — in my 20s, it started around 10:30am and lasted until about 2pm, whereas in my post-children 30s, my mornings begin around 6:30-7am and last until 11:30am — the slot where a comfortable ritual finds its home hasn’t. Here are five Saturday happy morning rituals from my lifetime to date.

1. Saturday morning cartoons: Still clad in jammies, I’d spend Saturday mornings watching Wonder Woman, Carebears, The Jetsons (remember this?) The Smurfs and more. Vegging out over breakfast and being entertained by cartoon drawings? Bliss for a young girl. Unfortunately I often had my cartoons cut off around 10am when I had to go to my Saturday morning tap dance class, but what time I got in was priceless.

2. Saturday morning lessons: From music to sport ball to ballet, now that I’ve got young kids, my Saturday mornings are eaten up by their lessons. But that’s not to say I don’t enjoy the shuttling around now that I’m into the lesson groove. Back when my daughter was in a stroller and our family and some friends took our children to music classes, the Saturday morning walk to class involved vanilla lattes and lots of chatting. Now while my daughter’s at ballet, it means some rare alone time with our son when we dig into toys or hit a nearby café for a snack and preschooler chat.

3. Saturday morning brunch: Still a favourite when we get a free Saturday morning to do it. But as long as my husband and I have been together, we’ve often eschewed our usual peanut butter on toast weekday breakfast for more greasy fare at the local diner, or a pancake breakfast at Golden Griddle where bottomless coffees washed down the home fries and casual chat.  

4. Saturday morning with the folks: Okay I’m sensing a theme — coffee. Before we had children, my husband and I took more weekends out of town visiting my parents or his. And that too meant lots of lazy Saturday mornings reading the paper, catching up over breakfast, or in the case of my parents, a visit to the nearby Williams café for coffee and muffins, and afterward some shopping.

5. Saturday morning sleep ins: Do I need to say anything else?  

What are your happy Saturday morning rituals?  

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