In just a few days, 400 bentos (Japanese lunch boxes) will be delivered to my condo building for its annual holiday party, the first in-person gathering since 2019. For the last 7 years, I’ve served on the Christmas party committee for this building of 437 apartments and 1000 residents, but this year I’m serving as chair. In addition to designing the newsletter, flyer, tickets, and putting a registration form on the website, I’m also organizing a cadre of about 25 volunteers to see that the food distribution goes smoothly. I’m already panicking with the thought of 400 people in our lobby! The biggest crowd we’ve ever had numbered 330 people, so this year is exceptionally enormous. Thank goodness not everyone in the building decides to attend!
In addition to organizing the food distribution, I also buy gifts for the children, arrange for a Santa Claus, and contract live music during the event. This year we’ll be having an a cappella barbershop octet for entertainment.
For many years we had Italian food delivered to us in bulk, requiring many volunteers to serve the food. Because of lingering COVID concerns, though, we thought it would be better to hand out prepared food in a box, a “bento.”
You’ll never believe when I put up my Christmas decorations this year—on Black Friday! When other people were taking advantage of Black Friday sales, I was pulling out my Christmas decorations from storage and deciding which ones to use this year.
With Christmas being on a Sunday this year (and having to play a Christmas Day service) I won’t be able to leave for my annual end-of-the-year trip to California until Christmas night at 11:59 pm. I will be arriving in California on Monday morning, Boxing Day, December 26.
I’ll actually be hosting a Christmas Day brunch before I get on the plane Christmas night.
Hawaii is in the international news these days, but of course, living on Oahu, we are far away from the erupting volcano on the Big Island. Still, I took this photo of the morning sky from my kitchen the first day of the eruption.
‘Tis the season!
Really lovely . . . but I can’t imagine organizing that feast (and your own, just before all that travel!).
Best wishes for a smooth landing with all of this!
Richard