On the first Monday of each month, Grace Church provides a meal to the guests who stay in the Men’s Drop-In Shelter, and to anyone else who might want to join us.

Today is St. Nicholas Day, so we decided to use that as our theme. The Guild Hall was decorated for the holidays, complete with Christmas tree (all thanks to the hard work of Ginny Shannon and her crew); members from our choir sang, as did our kids. The menu was ham, potatoes gratin, green beans, and lots of Christmas cookies. We collected socks and gave a couple hundred pairs away to our appreciative guests.

St. Nicholas Day needs an appearance from the bishop himself, so he came to pass out chocolate and socks.

A few pictures from the gala:

Here’s St. Nick, comparing beards:

Here’s a shot of Guild Hall:

Here are the kids with their kazoos:

And tonight may have been the final performance of our 50-year old Hobart dishwasher. The last time we tried to get it repaired, when the guy called in for parts, the home office had to search for the parts book in their archives. We hope to have a new one installed by our next shelter meal on January 3.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the meal tonight: the volunteers, the cooks Wolfgang and Christian, the shelter meal committee, and to all those who helped preparing food and cookies in advance, and the Rector’s Guild, who donated money toward the holiday ham.