Home Demonstration Clubs also put on their share of entertainments, with buffet suppers and skits, rounding off one year with a "husband-calling contest."[265] Even the business meetings themselves were social occasions at which dinner and friendly conversation were mixed with more critical concerns.
Oyster suppers were a regional specialty held all over the county, of which Floris sponsored its share. They were often money-making events (as were the ice cream socials) at which dinner cost from twenty-five to fifty cents and featured stewed and fried oysters. Lottie Schneider recalled the bustle of preparation for an oyster supper given in Herndon, involving the setting up of tables and benches and flower arrangements, and the difficult choice to be made between fried or stewed oysters and the many different relishes brought by each lady.[266] The suppers in fact generally held an overabundance of food. Again, Joseph Beard described the scene:
There were always a few who didn't like oysters and they always had ham for those.... Anything that you would have in a farming neighborhood like that, when you sat down to eat it was just like having a Thanksgiving dinner. Everything from sweet potatoes to scalloped potatoes to macaroni and cheese to string beans to corn-on-the-cob to tomatoes [would be served]. Most anything that could be raised or produced in a vegetable garden or in a truck patch they'd bring. Then we had custard pies and lemon pies and apple pies....[267]
The money made at the oyster dinners was used for school projects, to buy church furnishings or aid in mission work.
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Professional interest and pleasure were likewise combined at the various fairs held in the area during the late summer. The county sponsored a fair at Fairfax Courthouse until 1933 which featured new farm machinery, exemplary produce and livestock, and a gay carnival atmosphere. The Herndon News-Observer gave a colorful account of the county festivities in its September 23, 1926 edition:
The first day was largely devoted to judging, the second day saw a large picnic by Dranesville farmers, the County Chamber of Commerce and the 4-H Clubs frolicked on the third day while the visible and invisible empire [of the Ku Klux Klan] held sway on the last day. Good racing cards filled much of the afternoon. The prizes were more substantial and the performances proportionally good. Every exhibit building was loaded with all varieties and grades of exhibits, while the livestock was as equally interesting in its magnitude and diversification.
The flower department was carried partly out of the building where loving hands [had] specially devoted time and energy toward perfection. The woman's department, with nearly a thousand entries, was a wonder of culinary art. The poultry building with every squeek and squawk imaginable, fairly dazzled the farmers and their friends, who came to see what Fairfaxians and their friends are doing. Certainly no other fair in Virginia presented an arena of keener competition and the prize winners deserve to be most highly congratulated....[268]
The midway was a swirl of ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds and every variety of game by which you might separate yourself from surplus funds.
The region boasted a similar fair held generally in Prince William County and having the dual purpose of promoting and celebrating the dairy industry. The Piedmont Dairy Festival, as it was called, was modeled after the famous Shenandoah Apple Blossom festival and was jocularly known locally as the "Cow Blossom festival."[269]