It brings me great joy to share the story of another Residential groups Christmas experience here at the YSB!
As always our Christmas celebration spans the entire month of December with special recreation activities! The favorite continues to be our Secret Santa activity. Each resident had two staff assigned to them this year. One staff bought them $5 gifts for the 16th and 17th while the other bought them $5 gifts for the 18th and 19th. On the 19th which was the night of our Residential Christmas Party, the residents opened their big gift from their Secret Santa’s. Some staff chose to team up for this gift and others wanted to purchase their own, so residents either received one $40 gift or two $20 gifts.
It was a little sad this year as this was the first time in 26 years that Tina Bechtol had not prepared the Christmas dinner. Tina retired at the end of November after preparing our Thanksgiving dinner one last time. Thank you for all your years of service Tina!
We were very fortunate to have Kim Atkinson, “the new Tina”, Yvonne Duff and her son, Blaine Duff prepare the Christmas dinner for us this year. All of the food was very, very good and no one walked away hungry! Some of the residents ate so much that they had no room for any of the wonderful desserts!
Once everyone was finished eating we worked to prepare the lounge area for gift giving time. The first gifts to be passed out are the Secret Santa gifts. The residents open them and then try to guess which staff had them. Surprisingly, there were two correct guesses this year! Staff and resident alike really enjoy the fun and mystery around this activity. It never fails that at least one resident is completely shocked by which staff person had them and how well they did at getting things the resident really liked.
After Secret Santa the residents receive their haul of Christmas presents. Each resident gets a large Santa bag filled with gifts. The residents open them and then take turns sharing what they received. This year there were some new shoes, a lot of new clothes, some art stuff, a camera, and a robe, to name a few. The resident that received the robe was very excited about this gift!
One resident was shocked when the rest of the presents came out. She thought that the Secret Santa presents were the extent of their Christmas. She was very grateful for the Secret Santa gifts, but was blown away when there was so much more! When I asked her how she would communicate to those outside the YSB what Christmas here is like this is what she told me, “Even though it is a residential home the staff love us, take care of us and try to treat us like family”.
The residents always receive really nice name brand items that they often times do not have the opportunity to receive outside of care. It is always thrilling to see their reaction when they receive something that they really wanted, like the robe for example! I think he wore it the rest of the evening! Yvonne Duff, typically does the majority of the Christmas shopping for the residents each year. Yvonne has a special shopping ability which allows her to be able to pick out just the right gifts for each resident.
A lot of the time our residents are able to go home and be with someone from their family for at least part of Christmas day, but sometimes there are one or more who have no place to go for Christmas. When this happens we make sure that they have some additional presents to open Christmas morning along with having a big breakfast and getting to stay in pajamas for most of the day. This year we had three residents who were not able to have a Christmas visit.
On behalf of myself, the Board of Directors, staff, and most importantly the residents, we would like to thank all of this year’s donors as it is your support that allows us to create these life-long Christmas memories!
