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Hamilton Regional Indian Centre held their Christmas Community Dinner at a banquet hall on Kenilworth Ave S.  This is my 3rd year attending this event and I had a good time. We showed up early and found good seats. The cost to the event was non-perishable food donation so I brought two large shopping bags full of canned goods, pasta and rice.
This was not a fancy affair, no waiters or fine dinnerware, no fancy linen, all this came about thanks to the HRIC staff and native volunteers who cheerfully helped serve the food.  Only five of us tenants showed up for the dinner and I’m happy to announce tenant and friend Shirley won the 50/50 draw.  
Funny story: for reasons only known to Shirley after dinner she decided to walk over to Dollarama to shop for a few items. She was late getting back and nearly missed out when they called her winning ticket.  The dinner was open to all nationalities we don’t discriminate. I said hello to many non-native guests from downtown Hamilton as well as former tenants.  I adore native children there was this little guy in the washroom having difficulty reaching for the paper towels in the dispensary so I help him. As he was about to leave he asked my name, I replied I'm Tony he then introduced himself as Shawn I wished him a Merry Christmas then off he went.  :)
Native drummers were there to entertain the guests. UNH’s employee young Luke was one of the drummers. As he beat the round drum and chanted with his fellow drummers I stood by and felt proud of him. It was also nice to see native children dancing in a circle around the drummers.
In the end guests were allowed one take-out dinner each for the road.

The KMHC office is slacking off when it comes to notifying tenants that transportation is available to the event.  No invitation was posted on the bulletin boards I only found out by accident when I went to the office to ask about another matter. This explains the low attendance, usually there is more then five tenants going to the dinner.  The KMHC transportation driver has one tiny flaw while at the dinner she has a tendency to wander off and chit chat with her friends. She was nowhere to be seen, I got tired of standing around waiting so I went looking for her.  Hello! We're ready to go home now!  :P

For me this is the first of many turkey dinners to come during the holidays and I'm looking forward to all of them. :)

tk

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