A CCVT Tradition Continues at The Homeplace

Our traditional semiannual outing to The Homeplace restaurant continues this Saturday! This delicious tradition started six years ago and we've been going to The Homeplace restaurant at the end of each semester ever since.

If you don't know about The Homeplace restaurant, you are missing out. Most people I know would say it's one of the best restaurants within an hour's drive of Blacksburg. It's out in the country in a small town called Catawba, about a half hour from here, near Roanoke. They make the most delicious southern style food like country ham, fried chicken, and roast beef, with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, coleslaw, pinto beans, and other fruits or vegetables of the day, and apple butter for your buttermilk biscuits, and really good sweet tea or lemonade, and fruit cobbler for dessert.

As if the food wasn't good enough, we also get to eat it "family style" where you all sit around a huge table and just pass the food around and put however much you want on your plate and pass it on to the next person. It's like a big family holiday dinner. And the servers just keep bringing the food out until everybody has had as much as they want to eat.

All of this only costs about 15 dollars -- all you can eat, remember -- and it even includes your drink, dessert, and tax! The only thing you need to add is the tip.

So take a much needed study break after a long week of classes and exams and come on out to join us. And feel free to bring a friend with you.

Just meet at the campus house at 4:30pm and we'll carpool from there. We'll probably get back to campus around 8:30 or 9pm.

Remember: 4:30pm Saturday, at the campus house. 15 dollars plus tip.

See you then.
Steve

Christmas Party this Friday

CCVT's awesome annual Christmas party is going to be this Friday at 6:30pm at the campus house.

Yum!
We'll enjoy some delicious hot chocolate, hot spiced cider, and various "Christmas desserts" while the sounds of some of your favorite Christmas music fill the air. Please bring a Christmas dessert to share. If you don't feel capable of baking, you can always just buy some Christmas cookies or something like that to chip in.

White Elephant gift exchange
We will continue the CCVT tradition of having a hilarious White Elephant gift exchange at the party. What's a White Elephant gift exchange? Well, I have no idea where the name comes from, but it's a really fun, yet inexpensive, way to celebrate Christmas by exchanging gifts.

Here are your instructions: Bring a gift worth less than 5 dollars. This keeps things affordable. It doesn't even have to be brand new, as long as it is in good condition and is something that someone will enjoy and is worth about $4-5. You might be surprised how cool some gifts can be even while they are that inexpensive. It just takes a little creativity and imagination.

Students in past years have found some great gifts combing the isles of dollar stores, and thrift shops like Good Will, or the YMCA thrift shop on North Main Street. Sometimes the shopping part of this game turns out to be almost as much fun as the game itself. (Picture yourself in the toy department of the dollar store reliving your childhood. This time there's no parent telling you you can't buy it.)

Besides toys, some other popular ideas from years past are: cool Christmas ornaments, some nifty gadget, or yummy food, like maybe some homemade cookies, or just some candy, or something like that. Use your imagination. What would you enjoy getting?

Now that you have your gift, there is one more very important thing you need to do with it. You need to wrap it, and you need to wrap it well enough that nobody can tell what it is. This is part of what makes the game fun. We're all going to put our gifts in a big pile and take turns picking a present out of the pile. There is more to it than that, but this mystery is part of what makes the game fun, like when you were a kid and couldn't wait to open your presents under the Christmas tree and kept shaking them and tapping them trying to figure out what they might be. So wrap it well enough that it's not obvious what it is.

If you don't have wrapping paper, use newspaper or paper grocery bags or something. It doesn't have to be pretty, just a mystery. Besides, I've seen gifts wrapped in these that ended up looking surprisingly good.

We'll explain the rest of the rules at the party. Suffice it to say, we always have a lot of laughs with this game.

Special Surprise Activity
We also have a special surprise activity planned for this Christmas party. Please bring the following supplies for the surprise activity if you have them:
a large stick
some olive oil (if you don't have any, vegetable oil or something like that will do)
some rope
a pair of sandals or flip-flops
a towel
a robe

If you don't have all of these, do not go out and buy them. We don't need for everyone to have all of these. If everyone just brings what they have, we will have as much as we need. Thanks.


Please invite your friends to join us. Just remember to explain to them about bringing a gift for the gift exchange, or else provide one for them yourself, so they don't get left out of that. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

The Homeplace
One more thing just so you can plan ahead -- we are making our traditional semi-annual trek to The Homeplace restaurant next week either Thursday (Reading Day) or Saturday. We will take a poll at Oasis this week to see which works better for people's schedules. In the meantime, just wanted to give you a heads up about that.


Remember:
6:30pm at the campus house
Bring a wrapped gift worth no more than $5
Bring a Christmas dessert to share
Bring supplies for the surprise activity if you have them

Thanks, and I hope to see you at Oasis this Wednesday.
Steve