K* and Mae enjoy each others’ company at a community potluck.

I used to joke that I moved to DR to avoid going to kids’ birthday parties. With two children in school, and classes of around 20 kids each, we were in for a birthday party every week for the rest of our lives. It’s not that I don’t like kids or think they shouldn’t have happy birthdays, it’s that the ways that people celebrated were so boring! Standing around watching little kids eat pizza and drink juice boxes while I made small talk with other parents that I barely knew as we all drank coffee to try to get through our one free day of the week. It didn’t feel very celebratory to me at all. But that’s not to say that I don’t value celebrations in general.

Celebration is a universal human need. And since I’ve moved to Dancing Rabbit, I’ve learned how important it is to set some time aside for connection, play, and a good party. Christina here, writing about celebrations in the Tri-Communities.

Every week we have our mini celebration of food and each other at the Tuesday potluck. A song, a moment of silence, the sharing of some amazing (and some not-so-amazing) food, and time to catch up with my neighbors is all it takes to celebrate the week.

Two weeks ago, Scout and Kim hosted a lovely lawn party at their place at Sandhill with croquet, badminton, giant bubbles, and—wait for it—an actual homemade slip-n-slide. There were twinkly lights under the trees, shared food, lots of festive beverages, and plenty of talking and music.  

As I write this column, I am eagerly anticipating taking off yet another Saturday to celebrate when we have our yearly Land Day party. Again, we’ll have music and good food (crossing my fingers that Ben makes some artisanal sausage or ham or just about anything with duck) and plenty of time to sit around and talk and laugh.

I definitely didn’t move here for the parties, but I have learned a thing or two about how to make them fun. 

Here are my top-ten tips for celebrating, DR style:

Arrive when you want, leave when you want, and skip it if you feel like it. One of the benefits of living in community is knowing that if a friend comes late, leaves early, or just decides to stay home, I don’t have to take it personally. In fact, I know that my introvert friends’ tolerance for big, noisy gatherings is way lower than mine, and that’s fine! Having no-pressure gatherings is so great, and sometimes it’s lovely to just stay home.

Share food, but don’t make it fussy. If you want perfectly coordinated food, this is not the way to go, but if you want maximum participation with minimal stress, I highly recommend the un-coordinated potluck.  Sometimes this means that you will eat a meal entirely composed of lentil dishes (true story) and sometimes this means that you’ll have popcorn and some beans and go home and make yourself a bowl of cereal (also a true story). But sometimes you’ll get to eat the perfectly ripe squash that your neighbor grew from seed and prepared with other local vegetables.  You have to show up to find out!

Make it fancy dress. Okay, this one isn’t required, but it does make it more fun! Pre-meal circle-ups with top hats and tails, refashioned ball gowns, or that patchwork skirt that has made the rounds to at least three different Rabbits over the years really make for a more festive occasion.  It helps if you keep a community stash of costumes and former prom dresses for anyone who feels inspired.

Move your body. This might mean dancing, it might mean playing the always-spectacular game of capture the flag, it might mean going for a walk together, or it might mean running up and down the main road, pushing young children on tricycles. No matter how you choose to do it, I highly suggest adding some movement to your celebration.

Get outside. This is a practice that we started during our rare get-togethers during COVID that we have just sort of continued and one that I really appreciate. It’s not the most insightful thing to say that people do better when they spend more time outdoors, but it is something that I often need to be reminded of.  

Max tossing beanie animals at stacked cans on a barrel while Arthur gathers the fallen cans. Land Day Games! Photo by Emeshe.

Make it intergenerational. Did I mention how much I used to dislike those parties of 25 five-year-olds? If you show up at a DR party, you are going to find people from the ages of five to I-remember-the-moon-landing years old, and you’ll see them all interacting and having fun together. When I see my twelve-year-old chatting with a group of adults at a nearby table or when I see a grandmother-aged friend playing silly games with young kids, I really appreciate living somewhere where people don’t have to fit into little boxes of what is “age appropriate.” 

Make sure everyone has access to the party. Our land can be a bit rough and tricky to navigate for some, so we always try to make sure that we party somewhere that everyone can reach. Sometimes this means setting up tables on our main road, and sometimes it means organizing rides to get to a remote spot on the land for a celebration, but it’s important to make sure that everyone can get there.

Make some noise. This could be singing, it could be a dance soundtrack heavy on club hits of the 90s, or it could be the lovely combination of fiddle and banjo, but just about every celebration we have involves music of some kind. I guess that’s pretty typical for celebrations everywhere, but geez we have some amazing musicians in these parts! 

Eat popcorn. Get one of those giant metal bowls, make heaps of popcorn, add plenty of salt and butter (plus make another big bowl without butter for your vegan friends), and don’t forget copious amounts of nutritional yeast. Bonus if you can get K* or Alline to make the popcorn for you! It’s not a party if you’re not picking pieces of popcorn out of your clothes 24 hours later. Spend a minute or so looking around, remembering where you are, and just soaking it all in. As someone who is rarely silent and still, I really appreciate the moment of silence we take before a meal. Of course, given the number of dogs and/or kids present at any celebration, the quiet is mostly relative. Every once in a while when we are in the middle of some big party, I’ll just get caught up remembering that wow, I live here!  Taking time to appreciate being here right now is a wonderful way to celebrate.

Christina Lovdal Gil recently celebrated her birthday with a spirited game of capture the flag. Thanks for adding life to our celebrations, Christina!