Memory Garden December Look Back
It’s been a holly, jolly December here at Memory Garden. We closed out 2019 with a burst of entertainment and holiday fun!
We had a fabulous entertainment line up this month. Russ Keyser joined us with a wide variety of songs and humor. We had a visit from Brenda Carr and her band, kicking off the Christmas music season. Angelo Alaimo entertained us with his catchy harmonica tunes. Our residents thoroughly enjoyed the talents of Tim Stockman with his wide variety of instruments. We ventured out to Comfort Today for an impressive Christmas concert by the Acapella Madrigals from Jamestown High School. Davis and Eng contributed to our Christmas spirit with their musical talent. Saved By Grace brought their heavenly harmonies to our residents again. Stan Barton and his daughter Amanda wowed the crowd with songs of plenty. The talented Jeaneen Jaynes tickled the ivories with a holiday flare. Don Sandy made his popular weekly appearances with his accordion and Spencer Drake brought his guitar and lead us in his weekly sing alongs. Lucille Miller helped us celebrate our monthly birthday party with her enjoyable piano playing, Dave Johnson made his monthly performance bringing his guitar and accordion. Of course, it wouldn’t be the holiday season without Christmas carolers. The Girl Scouts from troop 20044 visited us singing Christmas songs door to door down the hallways of Memory Garden. On another night the residents enjoyed carolers from the Hospice Support Group. Every Friday morning it’s music with Mary time . Mary Schmidt leads our residents in sing alongs, rhythm circles and music games.
The Tanglewood Christmas show brought the house down with performances from the Golden Gems, Ring for Joy, the activities department and a special performance of “Santa Baby” was sung to our own Nick Ferreri by a very talented resident.
Getting into the Christmas spirit the residents gathered in the lobby to decorate the huge Christmas tree while indulging on hot chocolate and cookies. For our Christmas craft we decorated holly leaves and made a garland to hang in the soda shop. The baking club made a delectable banana split cake that was enjoyed by all.
We chose Christmas movies for our viewing pleasure this month, watching “Miracle on 34th Street” and “White Christmas”. On Christmas Eve everybody gathered together for some sensational Christmas stories including “The Night Before Christmas”, topping it off with refreshments.
On Christmas morning all the residents gathered around the tree in the soda shop. Santa paid us a visit and everyone received gifts as well as a stocking full of goodies. Don Sandy played some festive music on his accordion and his wife handed out homemade Swedish Christmas cookies.
We are very grateful to the Salvation Army for bringing gifts of blankets to each and everyone of our residents. We also thank the Church on the Rocks, Zion Covenant Church and Lakewood Baptist Church for their generous gifts to help brighten our residents’ holiday. There were many donations made by many individuals as well. All your efforts contributed to this very merry Christmas for our folks. Thank you all!
The tea party this month had a holiday theme to it, with Christmas cookies, Christmas music and lot’s of Christmas spirit. Our New Years Eve party was a blast with lot’s of great food and music. We reminisced about the year gone by and talked about our hopes for the upcoming year.
We played a number of Christmas themed games this month. Christmas Jeopardy was a lot of fun as was Christmas Jingo (Bingo with a holiday twist). Our residents enjoyed the Christmas trivia punch game (answer the trivia question correctly and win a prize from the punch board). Another great game was Santa Hangman (try to guess the Christmas word before Santa is complete). We had so much fun with our indoor snowball fight (sitting around in a circle, everyone throws big cotton snowballs at each other). Snowball toss was another great game (try throwing snowballs through holes in a game board). Christmas Pictionary was fun and festive as the residents had to guess what the Christmas themed picture was being drawn on the white board.
Of course we brought out some of the tried and true favorites such as kickball (sitting around a circle kicking the ball to each other), balloon volleyball (try to keep all 20 balloons in the air by batting them to each other), bowling, Bingo, Giant Kerplunk (pullout a stick but don’t let the marbles fall), ring toss, penny toss, ladderball (toss a short length of rope with balls on each end at a three rung ladder trying to wrap it around one of the rungs for a point value), and the 7-Up card game (each player is dealt seven cards face up, when one of there cards matches a card drawn from a second deck they turn their card over). We also played Rhyme Time (how many words can you think of that rhyme with a word written on the white board), Word-in-word game (how many words can you make using the letters of a bigger word written on the white board) and “What’s Next” (try to guess what comes next after being given part of a common phrase, song or nursery rhyme).
December’s been such a happy blur of holiday fun, it’s hard to believe it’s over, Now we find ourselves looking forward to what the new year brings. A fresh year with a fresh outlook and fresh ideas. Can’t wait!
Happy New Year to you all! If you have any questions or comments for upcoming activities, please contact Margaret Wright, Memory Garden Activities Coordinator at (716)488-9434 ext 2226, or email at MWright@tanglewoodmanor.com.
