snorksThe following is a sponsored post from Pillsbury.

As a child of the 80’s, it’s pretty much my job to be consumed with nostalgia. I can’t walk down the aisle at the grocery store without seeing a dozen brands of cereal I used to eat on Saturday mornings. I can’t even shop at a clothing store without seeing t-shirts branded with the cartoons I watched on those same Saturday mornings. Breakfast memories are my happiest memories of meals. That’s probably because I hated school lunches and dinnertime always felt really structured.

I remember getting up at sunrise on Saturdays and making my own bowl of cereal in the kitchen before watching the entire cartoon lineup. I’d get down to the chocolate-milk leftovers in the bottom of the bowl, and I’d refill it with another bowl of crunchy goodness.  My brother and I are almost ten years older than our little sister, so those memories are some of the best I share of just the two of us hanging out.

On Sunday mornings, I always went to Mass with my Nana. Sometimes she’d pick my brother and me up before the service, and we’d have a quick breakfast with her. She’d make soft-boiled eggs and I’d eat them in a little ceramic eggcup that I still have. After Mass, we’d go to the Parish Center and eat donuts. Those one-of-a-kind breakfast meals are memories I treasure. My Nana died of ovarian cancer when I was eleven, but those memories are still so vivid to me.

Christmas mornings are another childhood breakfast meal that I recall fondly. It’s one of the reasons I hope that my kids remember their Christmas morning breakfasts over at my parents’ house (the same house I had Christmas mornings in as a kid). The grownups all drank coffee during presents, while we sat around bleary-eyed and still in glasses and pajamas. And then my dad would putter in the kitchen, creating an elaborate meal using everything he could get his hands on. Last year, he made Eggs Benedict from scratch!

Sometimes breakfasts are special even when they’re spent alone, or with one other person and a bunch of animated sea creatures singing on TV. When I think back to being young, I’m even a little nostalgic over the breakfasts I ate at the kitchen table with the newspaper spread out in front of me and the clocking ticking down to the absolute last moment I could wait for in order to drive to high school on time.

Do you remember your childhood mornings fondly? Are there particular mornings that stand out the most?



This post was written by Maria Melee