When I was a little girl, we would go out to eat once a month.  Our favorite place to go was Red Lobster.  I would order the all you can eat popcorn shrimp with a Shirley Temple (Sprite and cherry syrup).  Even as I write this, I can picture my family shuffling to sit in a corner booth with a red and white checkered table cloth.  I can hear the squeaky noise my skin made as it rubbed against the seat.  I can practically taste the salty shrimp crunching in my mouth.

I still love to go out to eat.  It feels special because of my childhood experiences.  I go out at least once a week.  That sounds like a lot, but it is pretty accurate when I consider ordering in and a quick sandwich here and there.  My kids view going out to eat or ordering in as a very normal thing.  I remember when McDonalds came to town, whereas my kids consider fast food signage a part of the landscape.  I like to think of going out to eat as entertainment, but it is actually a pretty run of the mill activity.

I can probably say the same of movies.  Going to a movie theater alone with my husband feels like a treat because our kids are not clamoring all over us, but watching movies is another very normal activity.  We regularly rent movies online.  We also rent them from the library.  I like to pretend we are going to library for books but my kids race home to watch the videos, not to read.  I am working on that one!

Speaking of reading, I think it used to be its own form of entertainment.  My kids have more books than I can count.  I read somewhere that Abraham Lincoln owned only a few books growing up. He read each one so many times he had them memorized.

I know I have a lot more leisure time than my grandparents did.  My life seems to be focused on maximizing my time for leisure, relaxation and entertainment.  Consequently, a lot of acitivites my grandparents would have labeled as entertainment feel like a normal part of my routine.  We do other things as a family besides eating out and watching movies but I am hard pressed to think of anything that truly feels like entertainment they way I remember Red Lobster as a kid.

I am really curious about how my grandparents would have defined entertainment.  What did they do as a family?  Did my grandma spend time with friends?  Did my grandpa meet up with the guys?  Did my grandma and grandpa go on date nights?  What Would Grandma Do For Fun?