Church Christmas Dinner Big Success

Despite the nightmares I had about oversleeping and not getting my turkey into the oven on time, I managed to bake my 17 lb. turkey, make two big trays of dressing, two with the “green bean casserole”, and one tray of yams with marshmallows ontop.

Hubby carved the turkey and we hauled the food over to church. The room was all set up with red tablecloths, candy in little dishes on each table, and poinsettia plants here and there. One table held a coffee pot, another container of punch and one with hot cider. Another table had all sorts of homemade deserts, pie, cakes, cookies and even fudge.

The serving table was loaded with ham, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, yams, green salad, rolls, and sweet bread. Some of us stood behind the table and served up what people wanted. Others brought more food out from the kitchen, while others quickly prepared or brought out more of whatever dish we ran out of.

The paper had a notice in the Christmas morning addition and there was big sign inviting anyone who needed a place to go for Christmas dinner out on the highway. The dinner was to start at 1, but we began serving people at noon.

Many of the people we fed were the workers–and lots of members of my family since I usually have Christmas dinner at my house. However, we had many people come we’ve never seen before. And it was obvious they really appreciated (and needed) the Christmas dinner. We delivered 8 meals to people who called asking for them, and one family was picked up and brought to the church and taken home afterward.

It was a lot of work–but it was also a joy. What a great way to spend Christmas day! My daughter-in-law, son and grandson helped serve the food and enjoyed themselves. My granddaughter put people’s names on name tags.

I hope we do it again. I’m really proud of our tiny church, it is definitely a church with a big heart and I think we truly showed our Christmas spirit.

(I’m a terrible photographer–frankly I took these photos and then totally forgot to take any more. Of course most of the time I was behind the serving table, dishing up food for people.)

Marilyn