Spreading Christmas Joy

When I was a young girl I was part of a very active Girl Scout Troop 52. In October we would begin fund raising for our Christmas project. These activities included crafting sets of 12 Christmas cards and baking goodies to sell in front of grocery and department stores. We learned a lot of new skills and earned many badges.

The money we raised was then used to purchase a case of sweetheart soap, a case of candy canes, and a case of facial tissue. The sweetheart soap has a cool raised design on it which we painted with gold and silver paints. Wrapped in a piece of net and tied with a piece of ribbon, the bar became a drawer sachet. The tissue boxes were wrapped in hand-decorated holiday paper crafted from brown grocery bags potato stamped in red and green.

We spent several meetings learning Christmas carols and bell ringing. Hot chocolate and cookies made us better singers. The bells were loaned to us by the church where our meetings were held. We even made our own green felt elf hats to match our Girl Scout uniforms.

Just before Christmas on one weekend afternoon, we made our way to a local nursing home. In their lobby we performed our Christmas carol repertoire. Then we served the residents cookies and hot chocolate provided by the kitchen staff noting dietary requirements. We ended by passing out sachets to the females, tissues to the males, and candy canes to all.

The best gift of all was spending an hour talking with the residents individually. Eighty year old Christmas memories are absolutely fascinating whether you are nine or fifty-something!