First Annual Dinner of Thanks

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I keep trying to write a review about AutHaven. whenever I attempt to, though, I always become overwhelmed. So, I decided that I will write about one part of it at a time. Today I would like to write about our first Annual Dinner of Thanks.

We wanted it to make attendees feel cherished and know how thankful we were that we could all get together. We wanted the warm Thanksgiving feeling without the ussual accompanying "yucky feelings." This I think was one of the things done right that set the tone for the rest of the retreat.

First, we made sure that there were at least 2 foods that each attendee loved there [not that hard, tons of overlapping favorite Thanksgiving foods] and I made sure that diets were accommodated. We also had on hand exact ingredients for each dish. I had cooked and baked, then frozen. TONS of food [not only for that meal but for the entire week-end] I had sauted sausage, herbs, onions and celery and frozen the bags so that all I needed was to add the bread and broth and pop in the oven. I had frozen sweet potato pie casserole, rolls, green bean casserole. pies, cakes, cranberry sauce, and vegetable dishes, both sides and entrees, and about 300 cookies, mostly iced and decorated sugar cookies, which were all gone the first day. I had made my gravy and smashed taters the day before. Turkey. ham and Tofurkey were all prepped and ready tobe popped into the oven [ all at the same time because we had spatchcocked the turkey] Pre prepping everything prevented chaos.

There were no expectations as far as dress code, whatever was comfortable. Because of the availability of interaction badges, if you did not wish to interact that was not an issue. Everyone knew that if they needed to leave in the middle of the meal, that was cool, no questions asked.

Some people sat at the table,others chose to sit somewhere else. One person was too excited about her goody bag to eat [she kept pulling things out of her goody bag and saying "this is just like christmas." [ we were going for Thanksgiving,but that's okay] We very much want to make the Dinner of Thanks an annual tradition, because there was already so much bonding between individuals that evening and I attribute much of that to the thanksgiving type atmosphere.

There were activities available in the clubhouse, but we were all full and tired and having such a great time getting to know each other that the only activity was when a group of people went to the hot tub [which is also sitting around] The hot tub is the only area on the ranch where nudity is required. My son went with them and he told me that not one person seemed to show even a bit of anxiety about getting naked with a bunch of people they had just met and jumping into a hot tub [and a community shower afterwards]

I missed much of the rest of the evening because I went down to the camper to stay with my husband[ he was sick all 3 days] but I was told by someone that it was their best Thanksgiving ever.

It's a meal description like that above that reminds me that for a very long time, large communal meals were used to provide a cultural and social reference point for groups of people.

I do wonder how many WPers would enjoy such an event if they could attend.