Oh, it's the dOnnOr!

My only home-made child has moved back to our town and settled into her own home, a mere mile away from ours.  She asked if we could revive one of her former favorite Special Dinners, the "dOnnOr".  And so that's what we did last night.

Here's what the dOnnOr looks like.  First, you decorate with the letter "O":

 Perhaps you even wear an "O" in your hair and on your ears . . .

And to eat, there are "bOgOls" . . .

 . . . which are really buns for the "hOmbOrgOrs" [this is ground turkey, shaped into patties, with a hole in the middle):

Also on the menu, hOt pOppOrs, pOckled zOcchOni, and slices of chOse.  [translation:  hot peppers, pickled zucchini, and cheese, all round and/or with holes, so as to be O-shaped).  In the past, we've also had Opples (apples, cored first and then sliced into flat, round Os).

Much of the fun is trying to talk:

"PlOse pOss the kOtchOp!"   

"MOmO wOnts the mOstOrd!" 

"Would yO lOke a hOmbOrgOr on your bOgOl?"

Many giggles ensue.

This year, because the timing happened to work out well, I combined the DOnnOr with our annual "big give" (after all, "dOnnOr" sounds like "donor").  Every year, I save up all the envelopes we get from charities.  On some day, usually in the summer because that's when I have a bit of unstructured time, I pare the envelopes down, come up with a list of about 15-20 that we want to support, and start writing checks.  This year, just before we brought out the food, I brought the checkbook and pile of envelopes down to the DOnnOr together with a stash of pens.

I let the kids choose which envelopes they wanted to work with.  N-son chose the police association and the library; my birth daughter chose our college (we went to the same one) and a math society; K-daughter and her friend chose Doctors without Borders and Central Pennsylvania Food Bank . . . and then they wrote the checks.  In fact, they got so into it that they each wrote about four or five different checks.

Of course, I still have to sign the checks (and enter the info in my checkbook).  But it was good to talk about what charities we support and why.  When my daughters started enthusing to their friend about how cool Kiva is, I basked in the glow of knowing I've done something right about raising these gals.  

Even more, I was glad that I had a chance to set an example of generosity in a way that involves my kids, but that quickly also becomes a celebration.   We went straight from big bucks to BOgOls!

It was totolly O-some.