The Spirit and Joy of Christmas

Extracts from Kimihia's Award Winning Christmas Competition Entry

See competition entry photos here

Activities Coordinator, Sarah got cracking with resident activities to join in the festivities. Sarah is a young, bubbly girl with an infectious giggle who never fails to enthuse residents and staff alike to ‘join in’. So, in line with the ‘gingerbread theme’ set for the competition, Sarah got the resident’s baking gingerbread—an activity that they wholeheartedly enjoyed. Needless to say, the gingerbread men (or women, as most of them turned out to be!) were demolished in record time.

Sarah also arranged for a local church group to bring their guitars and lead the Residents in a fun time of Christmas carol singing, and finished it off with a good ol’ sing-a-long of old time and Maori favourites. The group then spoilt the residents and staff with a wonderful afternoon tea comprising mince pies, savouries, Christmas cake and a delectable platter of melons and fruits.
Each resident was presented with a wonderful gift pack of goodies for Christmas. It was a truly wonderful, fun-filled afternoon.

Local band “The Two Bobs” (so known because they are both called, well, Bob) joined in the festivities and played along with the group.

The local town folk arranged a Santa Parade and invited local business and groups to compete in a float parade. Sarah and her merry group of helpers (staff, residents and volunteers) jumped in boots and all, and smothered the Resthome van in Christmas decorations. There were camels and bows, tinsel and snow, Christmas bells and, being the mighty Waikato, the incessant Mooloo bells! It was a great delight to the staff and residents to bring home the third place trophy in the parade.

More than seventy residents and their families were treated to a sumptuous Christmas Dinner. After a delicious serving of punch, the food and wine flowed. Our favourite local musos, “The Two Bobs” provided us with an afternoon of music and entertainment. Residents enjoyed singing along or dancing to the old time dance hall music while the festivities were going on.

The working bees continued behind the scenes cutting, gluing, pasting, painting and glittering. The end result was a festive delight, both indoors and outdoors. One visitor was heard to remark “Gosh – it looks like a Christmas bomb went off here!”

Outside, the scene from the road was truly spectacular and brought many drive-by visitors who slowly edged their way through the circular drive at the front of the building to have a closer look at the decorations and lights.

Piped music throughout the facility had a variety of Christmas Carols and party music playing through the day, and this contributed to the spirit of “Peace and Goodwill” at our Resthome and Hospital.

The last activity was, naturally, an opportunity for the staff to let their hair down. The group got together for a luxurious cold buffet dinner followed by coffee and dessert. After dinner, the group gathered around the table and played a game with a simple dice and a basket of Christmas crackers. The object of the game was to ‘throw a six’, while sipping champagne! After two cycles, the first “6” was thrown, and the lucky person got to ‘choose a cracker’.

What the staff didn’t know, was that each cracker held a wad of cash.. Imagine the excitement as the first cracker was pulled and out fell a roll of money! From then on, it was ‘game on’!

As each person threw a six, they were eliminated from the game, but continued the ‘whooping’ and shouting (and drinking champagne of course), until everyone got a turn to select their cracker. The tension mounted as it began to dawn on the participants that all the crackers had different amounts of money in them – ranging from $25 to $300.

The game really went down to the wire, with the 'big ones' coming out near the end of the game, thus increasing the excitement and volume. This was, of course, thirsty yakka, and necessitated the consumption of more champagne!

See some photos of the competition entry photos here