Here Comes Santa Claus

This past weekend was the Christmas Party at our Senior Living Community in Yorba Linda.  Each year, the current Grand Family and the previous year's Grand Family come to our Eastern Star Home to celebrate with our residents.

This year, the festivities started with an afternoon tea at 3:00 pm or so.  We had the opportunity to sit with some of the Residents and visit for an hour or so over tea sandwiches and sweets with tea and coffee.  Some of the Residents have the most amazing stories to tell!  One lady showed me a lovely ring that dated from back in the 1860's - Wow!  The refreshments looked yummy, but since I am currently on a low carb diet, sandwiches and sweets were off my list of things to eat - Sigh!!!

After the tea, we went into the meeting room for a sing-a-long with the Residents and a visit from Santa with presents.  The program handout was a whole book of Christmas songs and the Residents would pick different songs to sing.  Our Grand Organist also wrote a really cute parody of the Twelve Days of Christmas, using events from the 2012 Grand Family's experiences so far for the things given on each of the days.  The day after the event, we all got a copy of it to keep for our own and that will go in my memento book for this year.  After the songs, Santa comes with the presents, which are prepared by the Home staff, with the Resident's names on them, and the Grand Officers take turns playing elf, taking a present from Santa and taking it over to the person for whom it was intended, so that the Residents don't have to struggle through the crowd to get their goodies.  Then there are pictures with Santa for everyone who wants them and quite a few people did, again as a memento of this special time.

The singing part is a little tough for me because I know that next year, I will be holding this party.  I don't want to disappoint the Residents, but I am always uncomfortable with the religious songs and don't sing them.  Truthfully, I don't know the words to any Christmas carols at all, at least not past the first couple of lines that they play on commercials selling CDs of the music.  I never learned them since my family does not celebrate Christmas and have no interest in learning them now, I must admit.  Well, I do know the words to Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, but I have a funny feeling that our Residents don't really want that one on the play list.  Of course you never know - their sense of humor might just go that way, but probably best not to take a chance.

I don't want to not have the party, so I guess I will have to try to come up with a play list of more generic winter songs that people know, like Frosty the Snowman, and just stay away from the ones that involve mangers and saviors.

Someone asked me though if I wanted to do some Hanukkah songs and the honest answer is that no, I don't really care about doing them with the Residents and don't really think it is a very good idea unless we end up with a Jewish resident between now and next December.  So far as I know, we don't have any now.  There doesn't seem to me to be any point in having a bunch of people struggle through songs that they don't know and have no meaning for them, just for me.  I mean, I guess that if they wanted to learn a Hanukkah song and sing it for me as a surprise gift, that would be okay, but if it wasn't their idea, why force on them something with no value to them that might in any way detract from their enjoyment of their Christmas party?  So probably no Hanukkah songs, unless they want to do it to please me or something like that.

Next weekend, I am in Tracy, Union City and Tulare.