Hannah House

SANTA PITCH HITS FOR THE EASTER BUNNY How could I resist? Gayle had an email from Linda saying we still had to buy the groceries for the Easter dinner at Hanna House and it was the day before Good Friday. As we had been doing this as a club for several years we couldn't let them down. Gayle was going to be tied up for the day and couldn't do it so good old Santa hopped in to the rescue and said he'd do it for her. Taking Linda's email it seemed a piece of cake. Only one problem, Santa always works with an Elf. What to do? Suddenly before my eyes appeared a good Elf by the name of Dale Shea. He agreed to help me and off we went to Save on Foods. After getting two shopping carts, we headed to the service desk and spoke to the operations manager Scott who we hoped would be in an early Christmas spirit and he was!! After telling him who we were and what we were doing, he gave us a $ 50.00 gift certificate to start us on our shopping. Next thing we had to do was look at Linda's list to find out what we had to buy. Let see, turkey check, ham check, but that was all that was on the list. No problem, we were two Rotarians and no task is too hard for us. The turkey and the hams were a piece of cake. What next? Let's see stuffing would be great, but how many boxes? Easy, we just asked a lady who was walking by." I only buy one she says". For 40 to 45 people I say. She then tells us that's just for flavor, you have to buy bread, celery, carrots, onions and a bunch of other stuff and stick it you know where. The Elf and I look at each other and the Elf says he just buys the box at home and makes it on the stove and his kids eat it up. Santa made an executive decision and boxes it is, the Elf rans off to get the boxes and the helpful lady mumbled something, smiled and hurried away. We were on a roll and the stuffing was followed with hot cross buns, crumpets, chocolate eggs for the hunt, real eggs to dye and decorate , veggies, pickles and other goods as they say too numerous to mention. What should we get them to drink I said to the Good Elf? How about a couple of dozen Beer he says? They had to settle for Tea, Coffee, and pop. Apart from the good Elf putting the hot cross buns and eggs under the cases of pop, things went petty smoothly. If in doubt, ask the closest woman shopping. The older the better. We were just about finished and the carts were over flowing when we remembered to get fresh buns and low fat spread. We thinking of the girls, they have to watch their weight, well maybe they could start watching again on Easter Monday. Only thing left was dessert. Well maybe we got carried away a little bit, there was fresh strawberries and whip cream, several different types of pies, fresh fruit, and I think there might have been a cake or some other things in there. My mother always told me not to count my food and hey, we were hoping they would invite us over for dinner!!! Guys can always dream. We were off to the check out. Holy Cow!!! It was lucky we had that $50 certificate to start us off. Oh well said Santa, that will teach Linda to leave it to the last minute and call a couple of men in on they're holidays. Especially two guys that don't cook, that's what we have Mrs. Clause for!! Finally we were in the home stretch. All we had to do now is deliver all the stuff to Hanna House. Seems easy enough. What's that on Linda's note? It says to call Kim at the house and let her know we are coming. Slight problem, we don't know the number. No problem, everyone likes surprises. So off we go to find the place. How hard can it be when three different people have given us directions and neither of us has been there before? Well the three of them must have given instructions coming from three different directions. Any way after knocking on a few doors and almost having one slammed in our face by a guy having a bad day we found it. Were the girls ever surprised. They appeared out of no where with offers of help to carry all of the bags in the house. It was a great feeling and as the Elf drove our sled out of sight we yelled Happy Easter to All and to All a Great Feast!!