By Marise Boehs
This Christmas marks the thirty-eighth annual Norman Christmas Day Community Dinner, which is held at the Norman High School Commons cafeteria and is coordinated by the Paula M. and Bob D. Magarian Norman Christmas Day Community Dinner Foundation, Inc.
This free, traditional Christmas dinner, which is open to everyone, and delivers over 300 meals to residents who are shut-ins. On average, 2000 meals are served through dine in and carry out.
The Dinner is held on Christmas Day from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Guests are greeted and served by 300 volunteers. There is a large toy room where children walk through and select what they want. Gloves, caps for children and adults, socks, scarves, and adult grooming items are distributed by our volunteers. Santa is there to take pictures with the children and hand out candy while a local band plays Christmas songs to bring joy to the families. Through the years, for some families, this is their only Christmas. Banks, businesses, and private donations along with 300 volunteers make the dinner possible.
But it hasn’t always been so. In 1987, the Magarian family of six, got together with a few caring individuals and together they organized a free community Christmas Dinner to benefit those who were alone, or those who were unable to prepare a Christmas meal.
“On Christmas Eve 1987 we had the church all set for the dinner. It was decorated and the women of St. Michaels had prepared the food. Toys were in place. It was all arranged and I went home,” said Bob Magarian.
“The next morning I woke up early to the worst ice storm in the history of Norman to date. It was horrible. Ice was hanging from everything. Trees where down,” he continued, “But I started for the church. It took me a long time to get there. It was 5am when I arrived and Howard Moore, my right hand man, was the only one there. He was heating up the roasters.”
But the day did not go smoothly. The bus sent to the designated pickup spots only had one rider and then the bus caught fire. So the men from St. Michaels got in their cars and drove, sliding and dodging fallen limbs, around Norman.
In the end, 20 people came and 24 volunteers served them. “One family with children told me if it wasn’t for that dinner they would have not had Christmas because he had been laid off from his job two weeks earlier,” Magarian said. Thus the Annual Christmas Dinner was decided. In 2017 the Magarian family lost their only son, Bob Dwight, unexpectedly, and in 2020 their oldest daughter, Paula Marie, from brain cancer.
The family decided in 2021 to honor their memory by establishling the “Paula M. and Bob D. Magarian Norman Christmas Day Community Dinner Foundation, Inc.”
