Our big seasonal party is over

... and it was great! Despite the frigid weather, the constant bombardment of Weather Alerts through all possible media and an ongoing Minneapolis Snow Emergency, we had our biggest turnout EVER for our caroling party! We ran out of chairs, we ran out of caroling books, but we DID NOT run out of food Richard produced his usual pots and pots of hot food, and due to generous guests constantly adding to the groaning board in the dining room we may have had more food at the end than we had when we started. This year we had an almost 50/50 mixture of Fans and Others, with many of the Others being from one or the other of the Rise Up Singing groups that Richard attends.

Thanks to all who attended, and a continuing thanks to skylarker for the handsomely produced "new" versions of our lyrics sheet that she gifted us with a few years back!

Help me pick some charities

When I got my totally unnecessary and undeserved Federal Tax Rebate check earlier in the year I said I was going to give it to charity. I still intend to, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I have some ideas, but wonder what other people would suggest. I would much prefer to give to organizations that offer a convenient, online option to opt out of junk mail and that will promise not to sell my name to other organizations.

I'm leaning towards the following:

Food Shelf: maybe Second Harvest, maybe the Minnesota Emergency Foodshelf Network.
Homeless shelters: Sharing and Caring Hands
Arts Organzations: HOTB, Intermedia Arts
Miscellaneous: Meals on Wheels, Toys for Tots, one of the Jewish charities that got shafted by Bernie Madoff.