This is a guest post from Chrissie, a convert who lives in Wales.  She has her own business, which you can see at www.ScrappersUnlimited.co.uk, and her own blog, at www.lifeisscrap.blogspot.com.  She also has a teaching BA.  Her favorite American food is Grasshopper Milkshakes from the Cougar Eat, or possibly root beer from the Brick Oven, which apparantly is to die for. 

Our daughter is 4 years old and her social whirl of a life is already in full swing with a play date or a birthday party twice every week at the moment it seems.  I’m sure I’m exaggerating but it’s a lot anyway! 

Up to this point all the birthday parties have been on a weekday or a Saturday, but one mum came up to me last week and told me that our daughter’s playmate at school was going to be having her birthday party at a local play centre (with slides, and climbing tubes and so on, and a ball pit…you know the sort of thing) but the only spare date near the birthday to hire the place was on a Sunday.  She was telling me this as she knew that we try to ‘keep the Sabbath holy’.  I said we could arrange for her daughter and mine to go out somewhere together a different day, which was mutually and happily agreed on, and that was that.  She did say that perhaps she wouldn’t have her daughter give my daughter an invite, but I suggested that perhaps that would be evading the matter, and we needed to bring our girl up ‘right’.
 
However, when I told my (LDS) husband about it, we got into a big discussion about going to parties on Sundays.  He insists that we do that ourselves, and I adamantly insisted we did NOT!  He thinks that when we (rarely) have a group of our friends over on a Sunday afternoon/evening to chat, eat food and perhaps play a boardgame, then that constitutes a party with our friends, so what’s the difference?  We talked about how Latter-day Saints ritually have people over at their home to visit after a baptism or blessing (on a Sunday) with food and so on.  Or what about the common munch-and-mingle events after church on fast Sundays?  Aren’t they parties?
 
So what makes it ‘not’ a party and okay to hold/attend?  I proferred such things as “well, we don’t dress up specially and I don’t lay on a big feast, presented as a buffet.”  Taking that line of thinking, is it then okay for my daughter to go to her friends’ homes on Sundays for a party, as long as it’s a dressed down affair?  Probably not.
 
Another friend suggested that Sundays are days for staying with the family, but then we discussed that I have very often been in other members’ homes on Sundays, especially when I was single.  If it’s JUST down to being together on a Sunday, could you as a family have a birthday party for your daughter, as long as the people who were there had a genetic link to you?  Or could three families all meet together and have a birthday party, because all their families would be together?
 
Remember, we’re not talking about an adult party here even…just little kids playing games like pass the parcel and eating ice-cream.
 
It seems a pedantic thing to nit pick about this subject, but we decided that if we are going to bring up our daughter in the teaching that “you don’t go to parties on Sundays,” then we need to know why (because one day she’ll ask) and we need to make sure we’re living it otherwise it’s pointless.  All of my friends have been brought up obeying this rule, and teach it to their children.  All my church life I have intended to bring up my offspring in the same manner.
 
I’d really value some other members’ opinions on this matter, and insights into how they were brought up (if they’ve been in the church since childhood) and what reasoning their parents gave. 
 
She’s still not going to the party though! LOL