Ward Christmas Dinner

The 15th of December was the College Oak Ward Christmas dinner and my first big project as activities committee co-chair.

The vision had been that small groups would work on different parts of the dinner over the course of a couple days so that everyone could participate and yet dinner could be nicer that just pot luck. On Monday Kristi, Bro. Curry and I went to Costco and bought most of what would be needed we then put everything in the fridge at church and called it a day. The first problem arouse the next day when another ward had the kitchen scheduled and Bishop went over and took all our stuff to his house, so this problem was easily resolved. The next problem came Wednesday night Kristi, Toa, Danny and Bishop and Sister Thomas where going to make cheesecake but we had not seen Bro. Curry's recipe until that day and it needed several hours of cook time, Kristi and I discussed some options and then Kristi and Sister Thomas decided that it was not realistic to try doing the cheesecakes and they would just be store bought. This was the best way to deal with the situation and tasted fine but moved away from my vision.

Friday morning I picked Lemons, about a bushels worth and delivered them to the Pilkington's where that night a group was going to juice them. One member of that group called and told me he would be late and might not make it at all so I called in a ringer and Devon went over for me. He and Mia juiced all the lemons and I had about 2 gallons of lemon juice.

Then the big day dawned. I met up with Bro. Curry at the church kitchen and we go the roasts in the oven and then went our separate ways for a while. At 1:00 I was supposed to have a potato pealing part at parents but had a few cancels and it was just me and Genevieve. We pealed all the while watching the Disney movie Ratatoui. Then back to the church for me. I called and got some more people there and we pealed veggies and got them in the oven, we got the potatoes onto boil and then the table and chairs crew showed up and got the cultural hall ready. I dashed off to buy what I needed for the hot drinks, I then came back and got two gallons of hot coco and 2 gallons of hot cider underway and served dinner.

The food was great but I was stressing over the program to much to sit down and eat, not to mention stepping out to stir the coco. My friend Mary Ann was going to sing for us but her accompanist could only stay a little while. Danny and Toa were going to sing for us but had not showed up yet and we were going to do a scripture reading that I had not worked out all the details for yet. I worked on breaking the Bible and Book of Mormon Christmas stories down into chunks for readers and getting readers and then introduced Mary Ann who sang beautifully for us, she did an Ava Maria and it was great then we had a pause and served cheesecake and I brought in the coco. We then listened to a recording of Scott Rivers singing a Portuguese Christmas hymn and then Ryann and Dustin sang a Spanish children's Christmas song. Both of these were lovely and I was beginning to calm down, we then did the readings and sang Joy to the World and had a closing prayer.

Cleanup went smoothly and there was plenty left over for people to take home. Though there were thing I wished had gone a bit differently I feel good about how it all came together. I don't think anyone else saw the problems I saw because they had the outside view. I still like my idea for division of labor and will try adjusting it and using it again but not around the holidays. I also need to refine how I put together programs, but for those who ate and listened I think it was a very nice evening and I am very grateful for the contributions each person made. Bro. Curry in particular, who was released as a councilor in the bishopric the following day.