Robert Seymour alerted us to K&W's Thanksgiving Special, which offers turkey with dressing and cranberry sauce, two vegetables, bread, dessert and coffee or tea.

He pointed out that we're fortunate to live in a community where a holiday meal is available for such an affordable price. The classic Thanksgiving picture - crowded house, big turkey in the oven - isn't reality for a lot of people, for any number of reasons. For many, having a place to go and enjoy a holiday meal is indeed something to be thankful for.

While we're at it, Roses to The Cave, which for as long as we can remember has held a free public potluck on Thanksgiving.

This year is no different. While most of the businesses in town are locked up and dark on Thanksgiving night, Chapel Hill's oldest tavern will hold an open jam - bring your guitar - and holiday potluck.

For folks who don't have family in the area, or who aren't traveling for the holiday, it sure is nice to have a warm, convivial place to go to eat, drink and be merry.

Roses to the local high school theater departments, which are tackling some extremely ambitious productions this fall.

Carrboro High got the ball rolling last month with Agatha Christie's whodunit, "And Then There Were None."

Last week, East Chapel Hill High staged a rollicking version of "A Flea in Her Ear," a madcap farce by French playwright Georges Feydeau. It's a challenging play, technically and otherwise; with a lot of characters coming and going and interacting at an increasingly breakneck pace, it requires both a lot of energy and a finely honed sense of timing.

This week, Chapel Hill High School will present a truly original take on Shakespeare's timeless "Romeo and Juliet," transporting the Montagues and Capulets into the Wild West and injecting the Bard's most famous romance with a double shot of adrenaline.

Young theater students thrive on this kind of thing - irreverence, energy, wit, pushing both themselves and the proverbial envelope.

Roses to the more than 100 local restaurants that participated in the 22nd annual RSVVP Day on Nov. 9.

On that Tuesday, each of the participating restaurants donated 10 percent of their total proceeds to the Inter-Faith Council for its food pantry and other hunger relief programs. (RSVVP stands for "Restaurants Sharing 10 Percent," where each V is the Roman numeral 5, so V plus V equals 10.)

RSVVP is one of our most enduring and successful fundraising programs, partly because, for ordinary individuals, donating is so fun - you give by going out to eat. But without the generous participation of the restaurants, of course, it wouldn't work. They're the ones who actually sacrifice a portion of their profits to contribute. We're grateful to them.