The Dining Divas Continued Their Holiday

Games & Giving Traditions, But Separately

By Lisa Kampeter

2020 obviously affected our Dining Divas outings, and the holiday season was no exception. Typically it is a night filled with tradition for our group, but atypical has become our norm. And although we weren’t able to get together, for a few Divas, the traditions lived on.

The Dining Divas Christmas party usually kicks off the holiday season for most of us, but this year it wasn’t meant to be. Once it was decided that we weren’t getting together, some Creative Divas got to work.First and probably the most important tradition are the charitable donations we make each year. Some years, we adopted families. In the past, we bought toys for a children’s charity, One year, we supported a woman’s shelter. This year, the Compassionate Diva suggested a nursing home. Not only was it depressing for the residents there being locked down for so long, but they’d already lost 15 people due to COVID. They could use some holiday cheer. So the Dining Divas gladly provided gifts to hopefully brighten their holiday season.

Throughout the year, when we get together at our Divas outings, we pass the “dime bag” before we pay our bills. Basically, we collect cash donations all year to add to our charitable donation in December. Because we weren’t together that often this year, the collection wasn’t as high as it had been in the past, but the money is being donated to TEAM Food Pantry that supports families of Florissant and Hazelwood in need. 2020 seems like the perfect year for this.

   Cookies Exchange and Games Take on New Meaning

Other Diva Christmas traditions have been Rob Your Neighbor and a Cookie Exchange. So the Imaginative Diva got to thinking. How can we still do this? She enlisted the help of the Perfectionist Diva. They came up with a plan that “we should have started on a year ago,” and got to work. First, they brainstormed on a homemade gift and decided to create reflective journals for 2021. What was a great idea to them turned into hours and hours of work as they hand-stamped most pages with inspiring messages of creativity. They truly were works of love. And although they weren’t “rob your neighbor” gifts, they hoped the Divas appreciated them more than what could have been a “white elephant” gift The next project were the cookies. The Creative Divas divided and conquered. At our Divas Christmas party, we would leave with Tupperware filled with all different types of cookies and enough to last the holiday season. After finishing the journals, the Creative Divas knew they wouldn’t have enough time (or energy) to create that many different cookies. So they both focused on mostly traditional recipes and each made three different kinds. The Recipe-Following Diva learned that even when she follows recipes, they’re not as good as Mom’s. Or Grandma’s. Or her niece’s. Or the random neighbor’s. But it’s the effort that counts, right?

                           Elf Divas Were Busy with Distribution

So now that the hard work was done, the real work began. Santa’s Elf Divas packaged the journals and cookies up festively, added a homemade button ornament (courtesy of the Lake Divas creations before we had even heard of COVID – January 2020) to the wrapping, and set out on a Diva adventure like no other.Taking the reins of Santa’s sleigh from Rudolph Diva (there were lot of stops to be made in one night, and preferably we’d get done before daylight – she’s an extremely slow driver), the Rand McNally Diva gunned it. The goal was to deliver to all Divas (in Missouri) in that one night. We were not knocking on doors. We were not visiting. We were just dropping the gifts on the front porches or in mailboxes, taking a photo, and then messaging the Divas when we left.

Years past, there was such a thing as a Diva “crime.” These weren’t real crimes, but they were “ crimes” or pranks that we played on family members, friends, or on an occasion, an unknowing stranger. Crimes like adding blow-up animals (like a penguin or an M&M man) to a nativity – we believe Jesus has a sense of humor. Or putting arrows through light-up deer (especially ones that had already fallen over after a wind storm). We had such fun on these adventures, but this year, we feared people may have gotten the wrong idea. Seeing an SUV with tinted windows and dimmed headlights pull up outside homes, and pictures being taken while the passenger approached front porches or opened mailboxes…no, that wouldn’t cause alarm. Or when she ran back to the car. There were multiple times heard “don’t get us shot.”

We argued a lot. “Don’t park so far away. I’m going to freeze!” she said. “But we can’t park in front of the house. We’ll get caught!” We didn’t want to scare people. We ran off when we spotted one Diva heading out to her porch, got busted by a husband early on, and according to the Exaggerating Diva, were in a high-speed car chase. We literally did go over the river and through the woods to reach all of the Dining Divas homes on Santa’s nice list. We have a new appreciation for the travels these ladies make each month to have dinner together. Well, at least I do. The other “elf” helping with these deliveries travels in from Grafton as often as she can to participate in the Diva outings.

Adventures at Every Stop on the Road

We got to see lots of holiday lights as our adventure took us through back roads we’d never been on before. We reminisced about the “good ol’ days” when the trek took us into towns we used to frequent and joked as we passed inviting taverns that we may have stopped in had it not been 2020.As we were close to finishing our deliveries, our luck ran out. As usual, the Delivering Diva went to the front porch, took a photo, and raced back to the car, while the Driving Diva took back up photos from the SUV. She jumped in the car, and quickly after yelled, “Did you hear that?” It sounded like someone had pounded on the window. Without even looking back, I gunned it. We were freaking out. And then I peered a speeding car coming up from behind us. We were in an unfamiliar part of the city, on a street that says “one lane ahead” and Mario Andretti was suddenly behind the wheel. My partner in crime said “turn”, so I turned onto a one-way street going the wrong way. The car following us did the same thing.

We turned into a driveway, and we tried to act like we belonged there.  Fortunately, the car “following us” flew by us. We backed out of the driveway going the right way this time and got back on the one lane road. Between arguing about how to get out of the area and about the car following us, we finally reach a somewhat familiar road.   “The car wasn’t following us,” she said. “Yes it was!” I said. This went on for a while.Once we were in the clear, we laughed and laughed. Yes, this was definitely a Christmas crime not to be repeated. Heading back to my accompanying Diva’s car, we got out and discussed how much fun we had. All of a sudden, an overhead speaker sounded “You are on private property!” Annoying and outrageously loud announcements kept blurting out that we need to leave immediately.   Like we were criminals. We ran to our own cars, frightened we were going to be arrested, and we gunned it once again. Well, I gunned it. She still drove like grandma

FOOTNOTE: The “dime bag” is not really a dime bag. It’s a cute little satchel a former Diva brought back from South Korea. Regarding the Diva home where we had the “high-speed” chase, I probably wasn’t driving over 25 MPH (but it felt like 85). And we learned later, we were at the wrong house.

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