Got leftovers?

Got leftovers?
How was your Thanksgiving? We hope all the preparations and anticipations went well and you were surrounded by friends and family plus the warmth of our local community. Did you survive Black Friday or did you boycott it? Been a little busy cyber-shopping? And, are you getting ready to do it all over again for Christmas?
Too many questions? Sorry, just one more: got any leftovers?
While many Thanksgiving tables are planned to have extra turkey or cranberry sauce for later meals, there are many thousands of Sonoma County residents — mostly seniors and children — who lack regular meals and must rely on government programs, churches and local food pantries for year-round basic nourishment.
It is heart-warming to see the newspaper photos each Thanksgiving and Christmas of community dinners, volunteers and the faces  of true spirit and sharing. But hunger is a daily fact in too many of our neighbors’ lives. More than one of every six people who live here must stand in a food line each week to get their food or food vouchers. That is more than 82,000 people, according to the Redwood Empire Food Bank. Imagine how much leftover turkey it would take to feed that many people just for a single meal?
So, as we plan for Christmas and all the surrounding holiday festivities, can we also make plans to include a little extra support for our local food bank, church charities and local food drives? Check the pages of this newspaper — or better yet, our website — for contact information on where to make donations. Watch for news about the season’s special food drives and upcoming free community holiday meals.
We are very fortunate to live where there are so many “leftovers.” It’s not only on Thanksgiving that food is our center of celebration here in what has become known as Wine Country. This is home to much haute cuisine, Slow Food convivials, shovel-to-fork ethos, three-star celebrity chefs, earnest farmers and food purveyors and well-heeled imbibers.
Here, for many, food is a past time, art form, a career or some kind of religion. For others food is a missing staple, a struggle or an undignified place in a food pantry wait line. Please remember this especially at this time of year when we try our best to keep alive a holiday spirit of sharing and joy.
Santa Claus has made several appearances around our county since Thanksgiving. We have a news tip that he has promised a few more visits over the next few weeks. This is good news because after the spiritless and unpleasant Black Friday buy-a-thons last weekend we weren’t sure whether Mr. Claus still had a job.
Talk about leftovers and excess, that is what Black Friday is all about isn’t it? Do you know there was an internet-based Black Friday prank called the “Holiday Hole?” People donated over $100,000 to support the digging of a hole in the ground for no purpose with no given location. The dig was live streamed on social media and won legions of Twitter fans, many boasting about “throwing their money in a hole.” We’re not making this up, but we wish we were.
Believing in the magic of Santa is getting harder and harder — not just for little children, but for all of us. We are saddened when Amazon purchases replace hometown holiday shopping. For us it’s not Christmas until we hear the clang of the Salvation Army bell and kettles.
We live in a world where there are too many leftovers. If we keep this up we really will put Santa Claus out of a job. Then again, he could always find work at the local food pantry.
— Rollie Atkinson