by A. C. O'Brien

Created on: August 23, 2007   Last Updated: September 18, 2010

What was I to do now, a four foot snowstorm landed on my Holiday and the weatherman said three more feet were due tomoro?

Several years ago my husband and I had moved away from our families on the East Coast and left our usual Holiday traditions behind. My husband had accepted a transfer away from our home state. We were newly weds and on our own. We knew a family who lived a few hours away from our new home and planned to have them in for Thanksgiving dinner. They graciously accepted our invitation and the planning began. I was new to this hostess thing, I wanted it to come off well so extensive planning and shopping were underway two weeks before the planned feast.

By Wednesday morning, the shopping and most of the prep. work was done, the twenty-two pound turkey was almost finished defrosting and the stuffing was ready to go into the bird in the morning. The corn was sitting in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator, shucked wrapped in damp papertowels and plastic wrap. The cranberries had been simmered, the wrapped fruit and pumpkin pies were on top of the garage cabinets where it was cooler and the local critters could not reach them. The cabinet held a few bottles of an inexpensive but good red that we liked. We had sweet potato casserole at the ready, my fresh green beans were prepped to go into creamy mushroom sauce, the traditional crunchy onion topping at the ready. There was whipping cream ready for whisk and ice cream to top the pies, A special blend of coffee to go with the pies and pretty new long candles for the table. There was even a new table cloth waiting to be baptized with my first attempt at home made gravy. We were on schedule with our planning.

Than the biggest snow storm in ages hit. There were three feet on the ground and it was still coming down on Wednesday evening. The weather man was predicting another foot before it stopped and after a short break of less than twenty-four hours he spoke of another huge storm behind this one! We were stunned, we never expected to see snow so early in the year and down in the city. True to form Denver weather was unpredictable. We had been told us to expect the unexpected, now we knew why.

Travel by car would be deadly. Our friends, the only folks we knew in the state, called and begged off. How could they not. Driving mountain roads was out of the question. What was I going to do with all that food? There really was an awful lot of it. The fridge was ready to burst and the garage shelves were filling up. I was planning on feeding a large hoard, and of course we all want to have leftovers so I planned on sending enough home with everyone for sandwiches.

My husband and I discussed it for a while. We decided that the entire city of Denver was in the same situation. We climbed into our foul weather gear with an extra layer or two, then we went out and rang stranger's door bells in our new neighborhood. These were people we had not ever met, they did knot know us from Adam, and we did not know them. We found a few families disappointed that they could not get out to their own Thanksgiving family dinners. We invited them to our Thanksgiving day dinner instead. It was a lovely impromptu neighborhood gathering. It allowed us get to know our new neighbors and resolved all that extra food easily. We even sent some of the leftovers home with those new friends.

We are all old friends now, we often laugh about how we met on the stoop in the big Thanksgiving snow storm. Though we have moved several times since than, we still keep in touch. We do not send Christmas Cards to our old Colorado, "adopted family," they receive annual Thanksgiving Day cards instead.

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