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| (courtesy Best Little Studio Photography) |
Most of us will spend Thanksgiving with friends or family
but what would you do if you were in a new area, or if you didn’t have any
friends or family? Spending holidays alone can be a lonely experience but Fort
Thomas couple Jim and Audra Henline may have the answer in their annual
Orphans’ Thanksgiving dinner.
Jim and his family open their home to anyone who wants to
spend Thanksgiving with them. Attendees register online first, agree to bring a
dish to the potluck dinner and are provided with details of where to be and
when to be there. It may be that they are new to the area and have nobody
to spend the holiday with. They may have no family, or have been disowned for
religious reasons or for being LBTQ. The Henlines don’t ask questions, just try
to offer somewhere to “have some pie and
relax” with likeminded individuals. Jim says:
“We try to just
relax. It’s not a party, we’re not getting drunk or overindulging. We eat a
plate or two of food, maybe have a drink or two, hang out and have fun and get
to know people.”
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| (courtesy Best Little Studio Photography) |
They’ve been running the dinner for six years, with the last
two of them here in Fort Thomas. The idea first came about when they moved from
the Cincinnati/ NKY area to Washington state in 2009. Jim remembers “We realised we didn’t know any other
people and were just going to be sitting about.” They used meetup.com to
get in touch with other people in the same position and a Thanksgiving
tradition was born. “We’d go to each
others house every year, there was usually twenty five to thirty people.” The
people who attended usually found they had more in common than they might have
thought. “One year the host told us that
she was hosting another group the next week. When we asked who she sheepishly
told us that it was a Mensa group. It turned out almost everyone there was in
Mensa. We’re all geeks, our favourite thing is usually to play Cards Against
Humanity and have fun.”
Last year in Fort Thomas WKRC came to report on the
proceedings for TV. Two families attended with children. The Henlines have
three kids of their own and are also happy for guests to bring pets.
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| (courtesy Best Little Studio Photography) |
Jim and his wife run a potluck dinner once a month, usually
through the Cincinnati sub Reddit page. He describes himself as “a big scary guy” and has found the
dinners to be a great way to meet people. “When
we moved back to the area, most of our friends had already left. A lot of areas
had changed so we thought, “Lets get to know people and meet new friends.” It
has been a lot easier than going out to bars or just hoping to run into people.”
The connections he has made at the dinners have already proved to be life
saving. When the family first returned to the area, Jim was unfortunately laid
off. Through the people he had met through the dinners “I had enough connections to be able to continue working and had people to
fall back on.”
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| (courtesy Best Little Studio Photography) |
The Henlines already have 15 or so RSVPs for this year’s
dinner, some from new people and some from people who have attended other pot
lucks. The repeat visitors are a good
sign that people are enjoying the gatherings: “One guy even drives from Seaman, Ohio, which is about an hour and a
half away.” Anyone interested in attending can RSVP at https://www.reddit.com/r/cincinnati/comments/5a4nl5/rcincinnatis_2nd_annual_orphans_thanksgiving/
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