A close friend of mine relates this special and unique Shabbat tradition that she and her parents have recently begun:

"When I talked to my parents the other week, they said that they missed me most during Shabbat. They especially miss having the chance to bless me (with the blessing over the children that parents often say on Shabbat), since that is one of the times they feel the closest to me. In talking about what they could do about those feelings, they came up with the idea that maybe we could try to schedule time on every Shabbat for us to talk. Since I have been down here in Peru, we have been using Skype videochats to communicate, so they suggested that we could cook our individual Shabbat dinners in our different parts of the world, but then bring the laptops to the Shabbat table and do the prayers together. We did that for the first time this past Friday, and have plans to do it again next week. While its not quite the same as being at home with them, it does help to allay some of the feelings of distance. And its also good for us because it encourages us to make sitting down to Shabbat part of our hectic routine too."