No better home for the holidays than the Waffle House.
That’s where Tanya Ragsdale and her group of Cullman, Alabama friends held their annual “Friendsgiving” this past week. And they made the day of one lucky waitress too.
The eleven friends had breakfast and were waited on by Julia Ellison, a mother of six kids all under the age of 13. Their bill came to $74.75. (God bless Waffle House. Where else can you feed 11 people for under a hundred bucks?)
But when the friends began motioning Julia over after she brought the check, she thought she had screwed something up.
Actually though, the friends just wanted to give her a little surprise: They each chipped in $100, and left a tip for their waitress that amounted to just over $1,100.
According to Ellison, the money is going to be a gamechanger and will allow her to give her kids Christmas gifts that she’s never been able to afford before:
“At Christmas, our six kids always receive some gifts, but they are small and modest. I have always dreamed of being able to give each of my kids that one big gift…
This Christmas is going to be the best Christmas ever for my six children. For the first time ever, all of my kids will be getting something extra on Christmas morning. They will have something in addition to their small gifts. They will each be getting that one big present.”
This isn’t the first time that the friends have given their waitress something to be thankful for around the holidays: Last year, they started the Friendsgiving tradition at Cracker Barrel, and Ragsdale says they hope to keep it going in the future:
“We’d like to make Happy Friendsgiving an annual thing. Most of us work in the health and medical field, and we’re very aware of what people are going through…
Next year we will pick a different restaurant and do the same for an unsuspecting restaurant worker. It no doubt helps a person around Thanksgiving, and it makes us feel good, too.”
That’s one tradition that’s easy to get behind.
