Progressive Dinner - REALLY?!

So our ward does a traditional activity every year. The Progressive Dinner. The idea behind the dinner is that you have people who host a certain portion of the meal and everyone rotates to different houses for different courses. So you might host appetizers for 4 couples, then leave and go to A.'s house for salad with a whole different 4 couples, and then B.'s house for dinner with yet another group of 8 people. So you are mixing it up all night for all three courses. Then everyone meets back at the church for dessert. In the years past, it's been a HIT! Everyone is willing to host, help, and ensure it's success.
This year? NOT.SO.MUCH.

By last Sunday, my GF who is the activity chairperson, was BEGGING people to host. Oh sure, everyone wanted to come and enjoy, no one wanted to have to actually do the work. I ended up telling her I would just host all three courses. That way, she could get it all to work.

Splenda and I spent the week discussing what we wanted to serve for each course and mapping/planning it all out. Of course we knew Saturday morning was going to be busy with the game and all, so I took Friday off to get the cleaning and laundry done and out of the way.

We get all our food purchased, paper products selected and roasts starting to slow cook. I won't lie, my house smelled DE-LIGHT-FUL all day Saturday.

We had 3 other couples come first for appetizers. We served shrimp cocktail and a cheeseball and crackers. Knowing how I feel about cheese, you can imagine the sacrifice on my part : ) And then I made them pose like a prom picture! Here's our appetizer group.....

As soon as they were out the door, it was a mad rush to clean up the appetizer stuff, set the table again with fresh plates and glasses and get ready for salad. We just did a nice salad bar with lot's of different options to throw on your greens. I also found a delicious loaf of wheat crusty bread to go along with it. We had a phone call earlier in the afternoon letting us know that one of our salad couples wouldn't make it, but we were still expecting two others. Well, one couple showed up. We waited a few minutes. We waited a few more minutes, and then finally 15 minutes later realized, hey, the last couple is just not going to come. So we had this beautiful salad bar for....... 4. Actually, the couple that did come are relatively new, so it was great fun getting to know them better. Here's our salad group, I mean couple.....

As soon as they were on to their next gig, it was another mad rush to clean up the beautiful salad bar, get all the extras into baggies and get the table reset for the main course. I slow cooked two roasts in a special au jous sauce and had French Dip sandwiches. And since it felt really weird to just have that, I also made a jello with fruit and whip cream to go with it. Not gonna lie.....pretty.darn.good.
The folks for the main course were all just as fun as the earlier groups! Good times and lots of laughing. Here's our main course group.....

Sissy was not feeling well and wouldn't go to the ward-provided nursery, so part of our night was also spent trying to entertain her as well as the different guests that came. We bagged the idea of going over to the wardhouse for dessert. Instead, I mentioned that if anyone accidentally ended up with an extra dessert and dropped it off at my house, I wouldn't complain. And actually, in hind sight, it is a blessing that we hosted all three courses. We would have had to take her with us to the other homes and that would have been a PAIN!

Cleaned the kitchen, put all the left over food away. Which means by the way, we'll need to invite someone over Sunday for dinner to help us eat all this. About 30 minutes later, a plate of three different pieces of cake arrived. I.ate.them.all.

Super fun activity! And like I say, in years past, it's been great, but for some reason this year, while I enjoyed hosting and loved everyone who came to my house, knowing that it was such an effort to get participation and help, and even having people, just NOT show up, kinda left a bitter taste. Bitter enough that the three different cakes couldn't clear it. Maybe next year, Splenda and I will just go out.