Sundays always used to go at a different pace. If you grew up in the sixties and seventies, you’ll remember that day feeling longer than the other six, quieter, and somewhat dominated by things that no one thought to question.
It’s rhythmic. Some things happen, some things don’t happen, and there’s a shape throughout the day that you can set the watch to.
Some of them are cute. Some of them are boring enough to make a kid climb the walls. Here are eight things that might get you back to feeling like your old self.
1. Bake it all day
The oven was left on in the morning and the smell lingered for hours. By noon there was steam on the windows and someone was yelling about potatoes.
Sunday lunch is more of a full day’s activity than a meal. Meat, gravy, vegetables are all boiled within their being. Everyone knows roughly when to show up at the table, and you don’t walk away until the table hits the floor.
There’s usually a specific plate, a specific chair, a specific order of items. And there’s always too much, which means the same meat that’s cold on Monday becomes pie by Tuesday. Nothing was thrown away.
2. Church clothing and stiff collars
Whether a family member is particularly religious or not, Sunday morning usually means scrubbing down and putting on your prettiest, most uncomfortable clothes.
Good shoes for pinching feet. Itchy collar. Use a wet comb and firm hands to smooth your hair. You sit still for years and are told not to fidget.
For many families, faith no longer matters at that time. It’s about being respectable, about being seen looking presentable. You are then allowed to change back into normal clothes and the relief of taking off your good shoes is a small weekly event.
3. When all the shops are closed
You can’t just go out and grab something you forgot. If you run out of milk on Sunday, you don’t have milk, or you beg your neighbor for some.
The whole street was dark and the doors were closed. The supermarket doesn’t open before ten o’clock, and there’s no one to quickly search for missing ingredients. This day forces everyone to maintain a kind of silence, whether they want to or not.
It sounds inconvenient now, and it is. But one day, buying something is simply not on the table. Shops closing meant the family had to make do with what they had at home, and most of the time, somehow, you did.
4. Test card and three channels
Turn on the TV too early and you’ll get a test card, a weird still image and a low hum, sitting there waiting for the day’s broadcast to start.
You can’t just watch whatever you want when you want. A few channels, a fixed schedule, a long afternoon and nothing but some dull stuff aimed at adults.
You learn to wait for your show and actually watch it when it comes because there are no second chances. Miss it and it disappears. In the evenings, the whole family would often gather in front of the television and watch the same movie because that’s what was playing.
5. Wash your car in the driveway
Buckets, sponges and hoses were out, needed or not, and the best part of an hour was spent in the family car.
It’s a fixture of the Sunday scene. Usually someone’s dad is wearing old clothes, soapy water is running down the driveway, and a radio is sitting in an open window. Neighbors nodded to each other across the low fence, doing the exact same thing.
The car is washed, the driveway is soaked, and the kids might receive a hubcap cloth to make them feel useful. Rather than saying that the car was dirty, it was better to say that work gave the afternoon a little meaning.
6. Long distance calls
At the appointed time, someone called a distant relative, and the whole family lined up to shout a few words.
Long distance calls at the time cost real money, so calls were rationed and usually reserved only for Sundays when rates dropped. You’ll be handed a heavy receiver and told to say hello to your grandparent or aunt who can barely hear you. There’s something slightly absurd about it – a formal short speech delivered at top volume to people half a country away, everyone behaving a little better than usual.
The calls never lasted too long because every minute was somewhere. But there was a special warmth to this scheduled ceremony, as the family gathered around a phone fixed to the hallway wall and took turns waiting.
7. When boredom has nowhere to go
There comes a time every Sunday afternoon when you really have nothing to do but sit down.
There are no phones to scroll through, no shops to visit, and good television is still hours away. Just a long, mundane time where a kid announces to everyone listening that they’re bored. The usual answer is that only boring people are bored, but that never helps.
So you make it fun for yourself. You read the same comic again, creating something from scratch, lying on the floor watching the dust fly in the sun. Looking back, some empty time is where imagination can really work.
8. Get ready for Monday
As the lights begin to go out, a special feeling creeps over. The bathrooms are set up, the uniforms are laid out, and the weekend is almost over.
Sunday night has its own mood, half comfort, half fear. The schoolbag is placed at the door. In a panic, I suddenly remembered my homework. That special dreary feeling that the days of freedom are over and the alarm clock is back.
The house settled into an earlier, steadier rhythm. Hair washed, shoes on the stairs, everything ready for the morning. You go to bed somewhat reluctantly, already ready for Monday, having missed a Sunday that feels like it will last forever.
It’s easy to get gilded in those days and just remember the barbecue and forget how slowly boredom creeps in. They’re not better or worse, just built differently and have to adapt to more edges this week.
If all this takes you back to your Sundays, then maybe it’s worth passing on the reality of those days to younger people. They often have a hard time imagining a world where stores have just closed and everyone is staying home.
