Happy Holidays from Casserly House! On Thursday, December 17th Casserly House staff, volunteers, students and community members gathered for our annual Christmas Prayer Celebration. Just like our Thanksgiving Prayer Service, we held this celebration on Zoom. While we all wished to celebrate in person, it was wonderful to connect with the Casserly House community online. This year we celebrated through prayer, poems, a reading by After School Program students, a sign language performance and a visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus. We tried to implement as many traditions from past years as possible on Zoom. The ASP students usually sing some carols during the celebration, but as we have learned during the past nine months, trying to sing or perform music in synchrony on Zoom is often a challenge. So, some of the students agreed to learn sign language to Jingle Bells and recorded a video that was shown during the celebration. This allowed us to still enjoy a wonderful musical performance while adapting to technological changes.
Several students also read various poems and prayers. A group of students read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” It was delightful to see how well the students read, especially after months of being in challenging online school. Santa and Mrs. Claus also paid the students a visit on Zoom. Santa and Mrs. Claus are often guests for our Christmas celebration, and they usually share why the students are on the nice list and hand out gifts. This year the gifts for the students were in quarantine due to COVID-19, so the students will receive them at a later date… Overall we had a joyful celebration. We look forward to a time when we can celebrate in person once again. Happy holidays and Happy New Year to all!