Members' Candlelight Tea

On Saturday evening, Ananda members turned out in their finery for our annual gala event celebrating the fact that we all love being part of the same divine ray together. Calling it a "tea" doesn't quite do justice to the array and excellence of the food, which were impressive. (I think I ate three dinners there, two of which were actually desserts.) And check out this cake that Chris made, with the Ananda joy logo done in poppy seeds and powdered sugar!

The cutest part of the evening was a collection of baby photos. About 40 folks contributed pictures for a "who's who?" guessing contest, in which we all tried to match photo numbers with names from a list. (See all the pictures here if you want to play along at home.) Midway through the evening, the answers were revealed via a slideshow, with each person getting to stand next to their baby photo. It was fun seeing how some people's pictures were quickly identifiable by a feature, or an expression, or just by a general vibe, and how others only popped into focus after the answer was given away.

And of course, what would an Ananda event be without music? We had some lovely songs performed by a small choir ensemble, an audience sing-along/whistle-along led by Dambara, and the return of our barbershop quartet (who last made their appearance regaling us with our Thanksgiving menus.)

And just to prove that we can have fun with anything, the evening included a pop-quiz. The tables competed as groups to answer a variety of tricky questions from Autobiography of a Yogi. These started with "What was Yogananda's given name as a child?" and got harder from there. But the winning table got 43 out of 55 questions correct! The rest of us voted for multiple choice options next time.

It was a beautiful evening all around, and you can find more photos of it here.