Today I noticed how much joy pancakes bring me.

I haven’t made them in quite a long time but flipping them on the griddle today filled me with so much sweet joy.

As my hubby and I loaded our pancakes with strawberries, whip cream, syrup, and butter, I couldn’t help but smile as childlike giddiness moved through me.

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Recently I heard someone say, “When you grow up poor, your parents make pancakes for dinner and say it’s fun, but really it’s because they’re cheap to cook.”

It knocked me over as I recalled all the times in my childhood that my parents made pancakes for dinner.

We weren’t financially in a good spot when I was growing up, but having pancakes for dinner never felt like a punishment for being poor.

It felt more like a reward. It was fun. My dad, the main cook in our household, would even let us customize them sometimes if we had the options in our pantry. He made me chocolate chip banana pancakes several times.

Pancakes became such a comfort food for me. During my teenage years if I was having difficulty with friends, family, a boy, or whatever other troubles plague a teenager’s mind, I would make pancakes.

Sometimes I’d be flipping pancakes at midnight if I couldn’t sleep. It was almost meditative experience for me.

When I heard this person phrase pancakes for dinner as a negative, I decided to make pancakes for my hubby and I for dinner. We’re new homeowners with a fixer upper so our budget is tight.

I was curious if pancakes for dinner could still be a fun at home date night for us, or would we just focus on our financial constraints.

I also wanted to test my memory. Had I been fooling myself pretending that as a kid I loved having pancakes for dinner? Was I misremembering what it meant to be a family who had pancakes for dinner?

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There is hardship in everything except eating pancakes. – Charles Spurgeon

My memory was right. Pancakes were uncomplicated bliss even in a complicated life.

As I poured the batter on the griddle for me and my hubby, I was instantly filled with that blissful nostalgia.

 I pictured my dad standing in the kitchen of our rental house adding chocolate chips to the batter while my sister and I sat at our dining table watching him, and my mom walking in to join us after a long day of work. And a smile spread across my face.  

Plus, my husband and I did have fun! Having pancakes for dinner felt like a treat. Just like it did when I was a kid. My husband loved the idea and he ate plenty of pancakes to prove how much he loved it. It brought us back to our own shared happy memory.  

For my husband and I, pancakes are also a part of our love story. The first time I stayed over at his place when we were dating, he wanted to make me pancakes for breakfast. Which was thoughtful, but they were… terrible!

My husband winged it when he was mixing the dry batter and water. They were incredibly dense. And my sweet but ill-advised man bought a cooking maple syrup instead of pancake syrup.

I think I appreciatively ate half of a pancake, before I told him I loved the gesture, but hated the breakfast. We laugh about it now every time we have pancakes.

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This recemented the idea in my mind that pancakes are happiness, poor or not, struggling or not, feeling awkward as you cook for your new girlfriend or not.

 Pancakes are pancakes. Whether you have them on a Saturday morning or a Thursday night.

Those childhood years were hard. My family struggled, but we also had fun and there were a lot of good times.

I love pancakes because they remind me of all the joy, love, and happiness you can find during darker days.

You can still connect with your loved ones and have a shared happy moment together over such a simple thing as pancakes. 

In those moments as you dump syrup on your stack of pancakes at 6pm, you’re not thinking about the why of it. You’re just thinking about how fun it is to have pancakes for dinner.

Pancakes aren’t asking to have any great meaning attached to them. But in my personal experience there is a great meaning I associate with them.

Happiness is a simple thing often found in the sweetest, smallest moments in life.

Pancakes are one of the easiest things to make (unless you’re my husband), but they are delicious and they fill your belly.

You can decorate and personalize them, but you can also just stick to the basics. Slap some butter and syrup on them and you’re good to go.

Pancakes are whatever you make them. Just like life. You can create both to be however you want them.

You have unlimited options when it comes to both.

All that matters when it comes to life and pancakes is your own perspective on it. You could say having pancakes for dinner as a child is a sign of a harder life, or you can choose to think of it as a wonderful, happy moment.

Pancakes, to me, are a sign of a sweet, simple, perfectly imperfect life.

So, the next time you’re at a loss on what to do have for dinner, try making some pancakes.

* If you want to start reconnecting with the simple joys in life sign up for my monthly newsletter. *