Update....
Oy, where to begin. I brought the drinks in my rolling cooler. Turns out I didn't need to put it in one because we did not go over to the church fellowship hall where we would have all been able to sit together.
My mom and I had turned the furnace in the hall when I arrived so it would be warm for anyone who was going to use the followship hall that day. In all there were 15 of us. There was a ton of 'cold stuff' that people brought and it was put in the center of the dining room table. Grandma cooked the turkey. It was excellent! Sophie's grandaaughter "angel" made the mashed potatoes, helped with the stuffing and the corn (from the can) These were situated on the small breakfast bar of the single wide mobile home kitchen.
About 6 people can sit at the dining room table comfortably, however, we managed to get 9 people around it with one spot left for Sophie. After saying thanks for the meal Sophie asked everyone "what would you like to drink?" Everyone was sort of wondering where they were going to sit at that point so no one really said anything. There was no water set out, no iced tea made (which is usual for us) or other drinks out. Before I could even say anything she yelled out "Well don't everyone talk at once!" Someone piped in with "Pepsi" and other's joined in. At that point I said "There are ice cold ones in the cooler." Sophie then goes over to the fridge, takes out a 12 pack of lukewarm Pepsi and drops it quite loudly onto the counter next to the turkey platter. "Help yourselves" she said.
At this point 9 of us had staked out a spot at the table with 6 sort of standing and wondering where they were going to sit as the whole place is really quite small. (Single wide mobile home). Anyway, people begin sort of shuffling around, grabbing paper plates and trying to get to the hot food that was sort of scrunched in the corner of the breakfast bar. (with no serving spoons in it) Sophie then brings out the card table and begins setting it up in the center of the very small kitchen and announces. "I'll be sitting at the kids table with "my angel" and then puts 4 metal folding chairs right around it. A 9 year great grandkid asks, "where are the other two people going to sit?" Sophie says, "oh i don't know.." then proceeds to ask Angel what kind of turkey meat she wanted. Sophie and Angel were left to sit at the card table by themselves and when those four got their plates fixed, after much hassle of everyone moving around to get to everything, then went down into seperate room.
No one touched the lukewarm pepsi, everyone else helped themselves to their beverage of choice from my cooler. Many even took some with them as the leftovers were packaged up by grandma and handed out when they left about half hour after dinner was over.
The clincher in the whole thing is that Sophie thought it was too much of a hassle for everything to be lugged across the street to the fellowship hall and didn't want to chance our dinner interfering with someone else who wanted to use it
two hours later. It would have really been quite easy (and normal) for all of us to help carry items to the hall. 15 people, we could even have done it one trip. The other family ended up not using the hall either.
