Turkey Day At Rainbow's End

Location: Livingston, Texas

First and foremost, let me thank all of you who are reading this blog for doing just that. I appreciate you more than you will ever know!

And now, Thanksgiving dinner at Rainbows End --- it was amazing. The plan was

• Everybody signs up to sit at a table, 10-12 people per table.
• Turkey, gravy, coffee, and tea are provided.
• Each table has a volunteer "host."
• The host gets together with the table members to decide what they will have at their table and who will bring it.
• In addition to food, everyone decorates their own table, brings their own place settings, a platter for the turkey and a bowl for the gravy, wine if desired, napkins, tea pitchers -- everything else.

When I signed up, a woman, who I will call Marilyn, was listed as the host. I was signed up at the first table of "Singles," and eventually there would be a total of three Single's tables. By late last week, Marilyn had not contacted us or even showed up at Social Hour. As it turns out, Marilyn had hosted in previous years, but was now vacationing in Argentina, so some "friends" of hers thought it would be "funny" to sign her up as host, knowing she would not be there. Realizing that the only real outcome of this would be chaos, I volunteered to host our table. As time wore on, it became apparent that no one was volunteering to host the other two Single's tables, so I volunteered for them, too.

I got everyone together for a meeting, and we decided, for our three tables, to put all the food together. We would have dinner buffet style instead of each table having their own dishes. We made sure we had enough duplicates (e.g., at least three people bringing mashed potatoes), and called it A Plan.

On Wednesday, the tables were set up, and the three Singles tables were placed together at one end of the room. We came in Thursday morning and decorated all three tables and the buffet table. At two o'clock the dinner began.

Everything went very well, with only a couple glitches. One man seemed quite put out that his dish of Piping Hot Whatever would not be solely eaten by his table mates (he missed the meeting). Another couple, who arrived late, were miffed because there were no longer two seats side-by-side and they couldn't sit together (people had already begun eating so switching chairs wasn't a good option). And we realized that we should have set up the buffet table so people could go down both sides. But those were minor glitches, and no one went home hungry. All told, 32 Singles and a total of almost 200 people attended Thanksgiving Dinner at Rainbow's End.