There are lots of small towns like Addison, where you can stand in the middle of Main Street at night and see every pinprick of starlight punched in the indigo sky.

Towns where there are no police sirens, where people still know firsthand what’s meant by the lyrics to “Silent Night.”

Coming around the curve by the Addison post office Saturday night, everything looked quiet. Parked cars, drawn up around the town hall like boots by a fireplace, gave the first hint of the gathering inside.

Passing through the bright foyer, there were glimpses of everyday municipal life: Open water fishing regulations. Motorist handbooks. A notice for owners of wolf hybrids.

Then, a push through another door, and sudden smells of dinner. Not just any dinner, but the Addison Volunteer Fire Department Auxiliary’s 15th annual Christmas meal for Addison senior citizens.

Five 20-pound turkeys, stuffed. Eight pounds of ham. Fifty pounds of potatoes, mashed by hand. Lots of gravy. Peas, squash, cranberry sauce, and baked beans, in casseroles bearing the owners’ faded return-address labels.

And who could forget the homemade pies — all 25 of ’em? Apple, custard, lemon meringue, chocolate cream, take your pick. Plus cherry cheesecake, eclairs, and yellow cake with pineapple-coconut frosting.

No wonder these Washington County seniors look forward to this dinner all year.

“It’s all good cooks in Addison,” confirmed Alberta Batson, 77, mother of 14 children and an originator of the auxiliary’s long-running Sunday night beano tradition, used to raise money for fire equipment.

“You get more people out when they know they’re going to have something good,” she said.

The cooks started cooking about 2:30 p.m. in the town hall kitchen, the warm, fluorescent-lit epicenter of the evening. Some things were made in advance, of course — the beans, the pies, the birds.

Most of the group’s 40 members pitched in. Some have had the same responsibilities for years. The aptly named Pat Carver is the group’s official pie cutter. “You need a straight eye,” she said. “They wait for me.”

Auxiliary President Betty Thompson manned the electric mixer in the middle of the room, attacking the night’s second vat of steaming-hot potatoes. Around her, a constantly shifting battalion of women dressed in red and black danced a steady waltz of food into the dining hall.

“The people are the best part, seeing their faces,” said Thompson, a small, calm woman who was taking obvious pleasure in the hubbub.

More than 100 guests sat in rows of red metal folding chairs at the long tables. Red and green streamers twisted across the ceiling overhead, matching the poinsettias and plaid flannel shirts down below. Earrings shaped like miniature bows and ornaments glittered.

When a stranger approached the tables, some conversations stopped. Other Addisonians had stories to tell, like white-haired Donald Grant, a retired postman and a favorite to win the “Gentleman Who Enjoys Flirting” award later in the evening.

Sideways looks from others at his table cautioned a newcomer not to believe all his tales — like the one about his being 44, and related to Ulysses S. Grant.

Asking a question meant risking a wisecrack:

Lived here all your life? “Not yet,” Grant answered.

The ruddy-faced gent pointed around the table at people he’s known all his life: the retired teacher, the retired postmaster, the retired highway foreman.

He pointed out men in their 70s who are still fishing for lobsters, and introduced Lewis Lovejoy, still working for the town as a school janitor at 83.

“I don’t want to sit around,” Lovejoy said.

Ever want to live anywhere else? the stranger wondered.

“No,” the old man said, and laughed hard, like a good joke had been made.

One could assume that all the seniors at dinner were Addison-born and raised, but that would be a mistake. The auxiliary even gave an award to the guest who had been in town the shortest time.

The winner, Joanne Jacob, moved to Addison from Pennsylvania 18 months ago with her husband. “We feel very much at home here,” she said.

The Christmas supper is “typical of the people here,” she said. “They’re very happy to make their own enjoyment out of life.”

They’re also happy to help neighbors. During last winter’s ice storm, auxiliary members met at the town hall day after day to roast pork and build oversized seafood chowders, food that was then delivered around the area.

“They’re kind of like the old mother hen of Addison,” Nona Cirone reflected.

“The girls work hard,” agreed Alice Kinghorn, 86.

In addition to Saturday’s dinner, there were gifts: pocket calendars and mints, hand lotion and umbrellas, mugs and mittens. Santa arrived with a heavy sack and a paper clip holding his belt together. “I remember when you were just that high,” he told postmaster Bunny Look.

Some guests snapped photos with disposable cameras. Most agreed they couldn’t “carry a tune in a wheelbarrow,” then joined in singing carols.

“For the first time in my life I’m glad I’m a senior citizen,” said nonagenarian Anna Hampton, a Pennsylvanian visiting her niece in Addison.

Auxiliary members wore corsages pinned to their blouses or sweaters. Their shoes, red or black flats, scuffed the floor as they worked. Except for Ann Merchant, auxiliary secretary, who padded around in her socks.

“I’m ready to dance,” she said. “This is the one night a year when the auxiliary members really enjoy themselves.”

The band from Bangor, Midnight Rose, was setting up in a corner, prepared to play Christmas favorites and country hits until midnight. The auxiliary’s handful of male members moved tables off the dance floor as the oldest guests gathered up coats and departed.

“Later on, the lights go down and the bottles come out,” someone promised.

As if on cue, a soft purple bag of Crown Royal appeared on the kitchen counter, and the lights over the dance floor snapped out.

Washing up the last of the silverware in the kitchen, Addison newcomer Rita James said her new home deserves appreciation. She moved to town from New Hampshire two years ago, and joined the auxiliary last month.

“It’s disappointing that more people in the state don’t know the people of Washington County and the way they do things,” she said. ” There’s an attitude that there’s nothing here, and they’re missing the best part.”

This Sunday, auxiliary members will be back in the kitchen, making 20 dozen finger rolls and platefuls of sweets for the annual Beano Christmas party. They already hosted a children’s party earlier this month.

Next December, they’ll do it all again, “Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise,” Betty Thompson said.

And the guests?

“We’ll be here, no question,” said Vernon Crowley, 92, the oldest man in Addison.