Poco Mountain Girl

Yesterday was our town’s annual free Thanksgiving dinner.  It’s our second year here, and the gathering is lots of fun…and super yummy!  The town provides the turkeys (37 this year!), gravy, mashed potatoes and stuffing–cooked up and served by a host of volunteers.

Everyone brings a side dish or dessert, and the tables are stuffed full of food (how did I not get one picture of the food?) There is a table with traditional turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, a gluten-free table, a vegan table, a table of drinks (water, lemonade, coffee), and a dessert table. The firemen even have a table with their famous turkey green chile with cheese and tortillas.

We load up our plates and head into the gym, where each family can eat together or mingle with other townsfolk. There is live music by a group in the corner: guitar, fiddle, bass guitar, djembe, flute, and penny-whistle. When people finish eating, some of them start dancing. There’s a tribe of dreadlock-topped kids leaping around, and Zia runs to join them.

Our town has a large subculture of homeless folk–more by choice than chance.  They live in the mountains and caves by night and wander through the town by day, wielding giant backpacks and hitchhiking to Boulder and back.  They make up part of the Thanksgiving crowd, and it’s probably their best meal all year.

We don’t spend a lot of time in town (our mountain is too sweet to leave very often!) but we have gotten to know several people through Zia’s dance classes, library story time, and Caleb’s school. The folks in our town are warm and friendly, but not overly curious. It really is a great town to be a part of–and for that, we’re thankful!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2012 at 12:39 pm and is filed under Celebrating, Colorado. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.