Taking time out at Denny’s for dinner with the kids

Hey, we’re a Denny’s Ambassador and were compensated for this post. Having said that, bacon. Manic chaos. Life is like that. During the holidays more people than usual are like that. This week on one of our many, seemingly countless errands we stopped by Denny’s with the kids. It was a chance to, dare I say, relax during the holiday season, recharge and then head back out. I saw their Tastes of the Holidays and it spoke to me.

I wasn’t expecting to order something from this menu. The eggs over easy and the bacon caught my eyes.  My mind was all set for some low calorie something or another to balance the metaphorical scales with all of the parties coming up. The season of pumpkin everything is gone, back are the more subtle tastes that don’t seem as novel. They’re more of a staple taste, incorporated with the meals that I already like.

Witness the Holiday Harvest Skillet. It’s two eggs cooked to order , apple chicken sausage, red and green peppers and a couple other things that were grilled to perfection. The kids wanted me to go with the Rudolph Pancake Breakfast, it’s a pair of pancakes, bacon, whipped cream and chocolate-all laid to look like a certain red nosed reindeer.

That led us down the path of naming all of the reindeer, which our 6 year old did surprisingly well at. For a child that says he doesn’t like to sing, he sure could say the names to all of Santa’s reindeer with ease. After his serenade I suggested that he order the Rudolph Pancake Breakfast.

He politely declined and picked up his Special Holiday Character Edition of the children’s menu. It’s got Rudolph on the cover in a screen shot from the Christmas television special that we all know. Also in the lower corners are graphics from DreamWorks Animation’s hit movies, Shrek and Madagascar.

After asking for the Rudolph cup and a DVD both he and his brother ordered something from that menu. It was noodles for one and a pancake dinner for the other. Few things in life can elicit the silly giggles from a child like having a food that’s traditionally associated with breakfast for dinner. “I’m having pancakes for dinner”, he said as if he was misbehaving. For the record, he wasn’t-this time.

His brother casually ate his noodles, drank some juice and would run up the window to touch the stickers.  He would do the big brother duty, trying to correct his behavior and tell him to stop running before somehow encouraging him.

It didn’t work out for the kids to eat free on this visit, but that was our fault. If you plan your visit accordingly then the kids can eat free on Tuesdays from 4-10PM. As it stood, the three of us had a big dinner with ice cream for just under $30, plus we got to sit down for an hour and relax, which is priceless.