Thanksgiving Dinner - Phase II

Spent the morning getting into the holiday spirit - thanks to my sister-in-law Sheila.  Sheila and Phil had spent part of the summer in Mjolnir.  She had picked up cooking supplies and some of that she left behind for me.   I thought I'd give the unopened items to the food pantry downtown.  Trouble is the food pantry is  not open every day.  The Federated Church runs it but the church isn't open every day since the pastor, like many small town pastors, has multiple congregations spread throughout the county.  The library used to collect food stuffs for the pantry periodically when they run their 'Food for Fines' program.  Problem is we, like most area libraries, don't issue fines for overdue books anymore.  I bopped down to the library and asked volunteer Colleen where food donations could be left.  She didn't think there was one but suggested the Village Hall might be willing to be a donation spot for the pantry.  It's a building that's open every weekday and a known location.  Colleen and I walked through the connecting doors and into the Village Hall.  The Village Clerk and her assistant were working on hanging gift tags from a Christmas Tree they had just put up.  Their 'Giving Tree' has tags for specific requests from needy families for Christmas.  The  idea is you take a tag, buy the gift, and put the unwrapped gift in a box they have next to the tree.   The Village Clerk was in a good mood and agreed to putting in another box for donated pantry items.  After all of the negotiating I decided I ought to supplement the few things I had to donate to the pantry.  Before I left I also grabbed a list from the clerk's desk of generic things people could buy to add to the specific things requested on the tags.  Drove over to the county seat and went to a store with toys.  Passed over the toy guns, macho action figures, and Barbies. Picked up a large Giganotasaurus.   Then a plastic John Deere tractor.  Buying toys was kinda fun.  Got a game of Sorry, play-doh in multiple colors, and a shampoo/conditioner/body wash set.  Supplemented those w/ a few smaller things and then it was off  to the grocery store.  Picked out a few bags of non-perishable food stuffs.  The Village Clerk and her assistant seemed surprised to see me again.  They didn't have a box yet for pantry donations but quickly found a tote to use.  Both donation boxes are now fairly filled - a good start for the season of giving.