Community Christmas Dinner sees rise in attendance

Another Christmas has come and gone in Havre, and this year's Community Christmas Dinner, held at the Havre Eagles Club that day, appears to have been a massive success.

Havre Community Christmas Dinner Committee Chair Doug Denny said they saw a bit of a drop in delivery requests this year, but in-person attendance has increased noticeably, which has been great to see.

"It's just fabulous," Denny said.

Indeed the Eagles Club was all but packed with people by 11:30 a.m., only a half hour after opening, with community members enjoying turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, dinner rolls, pie and more.

The free dinner has been held annually for years, serving hundreds of meals to attendees Christmas Day.

In the past few years the event saw more people moving deliveries, partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but poor weather last year also contributed.

This year, however, the area remains unseasonably warm overall, and Denny attributed the significant boost in in-person attendance primarily to that.

He said they were a little short on drivers for deliveries this year, but with the reduction in demand they managed to get all the meals out in good order.

As for in-house volunteers, he said, they had everything covered and then some, with plenty of extra people to help out with odd tasks while those in the kitchen served the meals.

The meals themselves, he said, were a little different than last year, as they had to trade out turkey for ham in 2022 due to a massive spike in the former's prices.

He said going back to turkey this year was great. Even if it takes a bit more time to prepare, he said, they had more than enough helpful people to get everything done.

"It is a little more work, but we had a kitchen just chock full of help today, so the help has been just awesome," he said.

Denny extended his thanks to Milk River Gobblers which provided the turkey this year, as well as everyone who helps make the dinner happen.