Jingle, Jingle!
Oh what fun it is to celebrate the holidays.
Around each corner at Westminster Canterbury Richmond you will find a beautifully decorated tree! There are over 45 Christmas trees in all, representing different aspects of holiday life here. Some are created and decorated by our residents and others by our staff. The One Voice Chorus signaled the start of this year’s season by performing at an annual program where our rooftop Christmas star is lit. Here’s a peek at a few of the tree themes:
- Earlier this season, residents and lobby visitors were dazzled by our special Mitten Tree. A total of 788 hand-knit caps, scarves and mittens were fashioned by residents and donated to the Richmond Christmas Mother for The Salvation Army Christmas Center.
- Our Traditional Tree is adorned with ornaments donated by residents for more than 40 years. Multi-colored lights twinkle through the branches, and a “Twelve Days of Christmas” tree skirt, designed and hand-stitched by Westminster Canterbury residents in 1983, completes the festive scene.
- The Chrismon Tree is decorated with ornaments representing monograms of Christ. The chrismons on this tree were created by residents between 1977-1989 and were refurbished in 2000.
Our trees only hint at the many holiday related events here. There are special performances in the Sara Belle November Theater, a live nativity, Chanukah Service, Christmas Eve Open House, Christmas Dinner in the dining rooms and even a WC&R Railroad in a resident-operated model train room open to visitors all month with an engineer running the trains. We celebrate the season here until the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and close the festivities with a “Burning of the Greens” service on January 6.