Cohousing-L Mailing List: Interesting celebrations

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

I've been enjoying reading these. Some of our regular excuses for social
get-togethers at Shadowlake Village are:
 -What we call grill-outs on Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day
(combination side-dish potluck and bring-your-own-grillables on our CH
wraparound deck, signed-up volunteers handling the grills)
 -Friday Happy Hours. Nowadays little or no alcohol is present and any food
is just snacky nibbles. Originally people would bring beer & wine and
serious finger food, but the people who used to do that have moved on. But
the Happy Hours have continued. Outdoors when it's not way too cold or
raining, otherwise inside the CH. This was the first social event to resume
after the first year of Covid since we could do it outdoors (in our winter
coats at that point and not staying out very long).
 -Winter breakfasts. People volunteer to cook Saturday morning breakfasts,
we pay in cash to keep it simple. (Just started up again last week!)
Depending on volunteers, they occur more or less weekly Dec-March.
 -Halloween. Pumpkin carving day; gathering the night of at the CH for
ordered-in pizza dinner and then community-wide trick-or-treating,
sometimes followed by a party.
 -4th of July. Kiddie parade in the morning with nicely decorated
trikes/bikes and watermelon, some kind of ball game for all ages early
afternoon, then the grill-out that evening
 -An annual late-summer camping trip to a nearby state park - lots of
people go to this.
 -Variety shows once or twice a year.
 -If we get enough snow, it's become traditional for a few folks to build
an igloo on our central Green and then for as many kids and adults as
possible to squeeze into it  -- it's hilarious to see them emerge, way more
people than you would think possible. This usually only happens once a
year. We didn't do this last year and I assume it will be skipped this year
too.

A tradition I love that is not exactly an event is the Cookie Fairies who
distribute homemade cookies by hanging little bags on our front door knobs
some morning in mid-December, and you don't know who they are. This is
followed by grateful expressions of thanks via the listserv to the
anonymous Cookie Fairies. This might happen two or three different times in
December. I hope they will all do it again this year!

I'm sure I'm forgetting some things we do, and there were events that have
fallen away. Sometimes it takes a particular person to make one of these
events happen every year and if that person leaves, that is that.