An Early Christmas

Paige & Justine:
On Friday, December 9th, we brought our crafting hands and holiday smiles to the residents of Avalon Care Center. The falling snow, as well as the Christmas tunes were in the air, and we thought it would be just the right time to bring some Christmas cheer to the elder members of our community.

With us, we brought a 3-D Styrofoam Christmas tree that we had painted green and paper ornaments  that the residents were going to help us color and decorate. We set up in the dining room of Avalon, and spread out our crayons and markers to the small gathering of ladies that had showed up for craft time. Many of the women were excited to do a little morning art project and were readily wanting to color some ornaments. We passed out the ornaments, and watched as they began to let the creative side of their brains take over. With some Christmas music in the back ground, we sat down with ladies and began to color with them, asking them what their favorite parts of Christmas were. One lady, who made about 5 ornaments, said that family was her favorite part. Berenice, who also happened to be the birthday girl, said that she loved the decorating aspect, which spoke to my heart (Justine) because that is the career that I want to go into. Angie only had one able hand to color, so we taped down her ornament so that she could still color. The chatter that began to happen around the table was full of joy and giddiness, whether that being from the excitement of Christmas, or looking forward to their highly anticipated Christmas party that was going to take place later that afternoon. 

Paige:

The shared art project has been one of my favorite parts of this course. I really enjoyed getting to set up the project and making a plan to work with the residents at Avalon Care Center. When we got to the center, we were able to set up and then explain to the women what we would be doing. Justine and I sat on opposite sides of the table to get to know different people. I had a couple wonderful talkative women who really enjoyed Christmas time and coloring. Our residents all colored multiple ornaments and even helped us place them where they wanted them on our tree. Overall this was a fun project, and I really enjoyed getting to teach others to do it with us. I am glad Justine and I had the privilege to go to Avalon Care Center.

Justine: Some of the ornaments that these ladies made were amazing. Many of them colored cool patterns, or colored them like real ornaments. The ladies near my end of the table also helped me place the ornaments on the tree, pointing out some blank spaces that needed a little something to fill them. One of my favorite moments was when one of the ladies had colored a yellow star said that we needed it for the top of the tree. I cut a little notch into the top, and slipped it in, topping the tree with most perfect star. They placed the tree on a shelf in their dining room so that they could see it whenever the went to go get a meal. I would definitely go back to Avalon and create some relationships with these lovely ladies. 

Paige & Justine: This was such a lovely experience, and is one that we do not often get to do. We loved talking with these ladies, some of them allowing us little glimpses into their lives. Our hearts warmed when they had funny stories about family, or why Christmas is important to them. This was a truly refreshing experience, and really got us into the Christmas spirit.