Dinner

Thanksgiving Day dinner etiquette By JOE ARCH Thanksgiving may be the first time you have dinner with your significant other's family. With this big step, questions begin to surface. What should you wear? How should you act? What should you eat? What if you don't like the food? What if they don't like you? continued To ease your fears and give you some guidance, we talked to Denna Smith of Inwood Performing Arts Center; Karen Yeager Rupprecht, the author of "Miss Prudence Pennypack's Perfectly Proper" and "A Month of Manners"; and Mac Dawson, a guidance counselor at Hancock Middle/Senior High School.

My friend and colleague Kristi might not agree with me on this, but I think Thanksgiving is one of the best holidays going. Unlike Christmas, there's no need to go hog wild on gifts and getting up early. Unlike Fourth of July, you don't need to stay up and fight the crowds to see the fireworks. Unlike Easter, you don't need to get all fancied up for church and go traipsing through grass looking for eggs. Thanksgiving has always been a fan favorite. Really, what's not to love?

About 40 people in need of help this holiday season, including some households coping with unemployment, were invited to a special Christmas dinner Thursday night.  The dinner, held at the community center in Byron Memorial Park, was organized by Deputy 1st Class Carl Witmer of the Washington County Sheriff's Office. Witmer, whose wife, Bev, helped on the project, said DOT Foods donated all the food for the dinner, which included turkey, ham, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, iced tea, lemonade and cake.

The traditional Hagerstown Salvation Army Thanksgiving dinner will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 23. The dinner will be held at 534 W. Franklin St. in Hagerstown.

A Soul Food Dinner will be held at Asbury United Methodist Church on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The dinner is sponsored by the United Methodist Women. Tickets cost $10. The church is at 155 N. Jonathan St. in Hagerstown.

Legends are hard to break. People in the deep South believe eating black-eyed peas, rice and greens on New Year's Day brings luck and money. Pennsylvanians of German heritage say eating pork and sauerkraut on the first day of the year means luck for the rest of the year. On Sunday afternoon, about 250 people, not all of German descent, were not only hoping for a good year, they were also enjoying a fine dinner of pork and sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and applesauce prepared by the members of Pond Bank Mennonite Church, a 120-member congregation on the community's main street.

GREENCASTLE, Pa. - Camp Joy El will host its annual pork and sauerkraut dinner at noon Wednesday, Dec. 31. The dinner is open to senior citizens, ages 55 and older. The event is free. King's Ambassadors, a barbershop quartet from the Chambersburg, Pa., area will provide entertainment. Reservations are required. To make a reservation, call Camp Joy El at 717-369-4539. For information, go to www.joyel.org .

The West Hagerstown Lions Club will be serving dinner Monday at the REACH Cold Weather Shelter. The Lions Club will be preparing the meal and serving it to those who go to the shelter on West Franklin Street in Hagerstown. The Lions will be serving soup, sandwiches and dessert. The shelter opens at 7 p.m.

When she still was in middle school, Ashley Jeter went with a group of girls from her church to serve at the REACH Cold Weather Shelter. By the time she left, she had decided she was going to open a homeless shelter of her own. In the words of her mother, Sandy Jeter, 49, of Smithsburg, “She was hooked.” “As a parent, you don't want to discourage your kids, but you need to make them realize that you can't just do something like that,” Sandy...

Dr. Alissa Harris cooked up an idea, sparked by a dream, to bring locally grown foods to the needy in parts of Jefferson County, W.Va. She turned that idea into a reality when she and a group of friends started the SouperNatural Kitchen and hosted their first SouperTuesday dinner in January at the Bolivar (W.Va.) Community Center. Harris said approximately 30 tickets were sold for the inaugural event. Harris, a chiropractor, analyzes and keeps journals about her nighttime visions, said she had a dream in November in which she was pushing a cart.