As has been said before....go to the school board....they made that policy. I volunteered for several years in a program where I ate lunch with elementary grade kids and then spent time reading with them. In this school nearly 90% of the kids were getting free lunch. And the reason why I and the rest of the volunteers were there was not only to boost reading skills but to provide some one on one time and to provide a positive adult role model. The lunches are not horrible...mostly! Things like turkey or ham and cheese sandwich, frozen fruit, or spaghetti green beans a meatball and a cookie, or tacoes or chicken nuggets, corn and mashed potatoes. Apples were always available as was milk both chocolate and plain. There was always white roll or bread of some sort....often a package of teddy grahams. The amount of the food that was tossed was amazing... One little girl ate nothing but bread and chocolate milk....and she was plump. I asked her what her mother fixed for dinner, she said she didn't make dinner so she, the child just got what she wanted to eat. I asked like what....she said pop tarts, lucky charms etc. her mother had no job so all was from wellfare. Another's mother worked at the backery in Wal_Mart so she got all sorts of good stuff. another one time brought his lunch one day because Mom's boy friend had brought Twinkies and Ho ho's or something similar, so her brought that for lunch. I sure am not for banning lunches from home....but as has been said you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. If they are only used to getting garbage at home all the plates of roast turkey mashed potatoes and green beans won't get eaten. Kids who will get a fully subsidized lunch may not eat it and those not eligible may find that $2.25 a day is very expensive. Linda C

Lunch? Nah, we eat at 1 p.m. then pick at leftovers all day! I have coffee for breakfast so I don't miss out on any of the Thanksgiving dinner goodies but I always have cheese and crackers, some of that veggie pizza made with crescent roll dough that Amanda loves, olives and pickles, so people can snack if they are hungry before dinner. Oh, yeah, wine. LOL Elery likes wine with his meal, but I have a bottle of ice wine that we'll have as dessert or after dessert or later or something. (grin) I also have a bottle of "Naughty Red", a very dry red wine that was a wedding gift, maybe later after everyone is gone Elery and I will drink that. Well, he'll drink it, I'll have a glass that I'll sip because I still haven't learned to like dry/red wine. I'm told it's an acquired taste and I just haven't acquired it yet! Annie

Lunch was Firehouse subs, I noticed they sell their 5 gallon pickle buckets with lids for $2 each. Proceeds go to charity. Might go back and get one for my KT laundry soap. Right now I use a square kitty litter bucket.

I cook for DH, myself and the kids. I always make monkey bread in the morning. Kids can open stocking while it bakes. I sprinkle powdered sugar on it and call it snow. Pot roast is our tradition for Christmas dinner, which will be served mid-day, neither lunch nor dinner, around 2:00. In between I put out munchies- crackers, cheeseball, cheese cubes, deviled eggs, grapes, pepperoni... We open under-the-tree gifts while the roast cooks. If they get hungry in the evening, we pull the leftovers out. We end up playing a lot of games and watching some movies, so the rest of the day after the meal is laid back. I like having all the work behind me by then, relax the rest of the day. I do not have a traditional Christmas Eve meal. Depends on how busy I still am, sometimes it's pizza! ;o) I'm OK this year, so I plan to put a pork roast (actually almost 4 lbs worth) in the crock pot tonight, let it cook all night, shred it up tomorrow dinner. Between that and Christmas day leftovers, we'll eat Sat and Sun, too. That's my plan. I really do not enjoy all this cooking. If I didn't think it would disappoint DH and kids, I would not do it. I'd find someplace that serves dinner Christmas day and go out! Oh, that would be so much nicer! Make a reservation, we'd all dress up and go out together, no cooking, no clean up. I resent the work, the time it takes to do it compared to the time it takes to consume it... Not worth it. I feel unappreciated.