It's the holiday season and we made the most of our final week of 2021 with lots of fun experiences. We celebrated our busy, successful, safe, and overall healthy (excpet for a few sniffles and a minor surgery) year, as well as the many projects and vocational tasks we accomplished. It was a wonderful year! Here's a look at our farewell to 2021...
Tuesday
We found out at the last minute that we could stop by the Art Museums today and check out their ELEVEN Christmas trees!
🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄
Christina was traveling to New York to pick up her freshman daughter from college, but she arranged for us to connect with her friend and coworker, Paulette, for the grand tour. So we loaded the vans after our dance warm up, and took off for a fun-filled day in Colonial Williamsburg.
The trees were very, very pretty, and the gang said we had to put pictures of all of them in the blog! Enjoy, or better yet, visit the museums to see for yourself!
1. Edward Hicks Tree - many animal ornaments on this one, including lions and lambs. We have studied the artist Edward Hicks with Christina, and we know that he is known for his "Peaceable Kingdom" works. Hicks wanted all of us to live in harmony with one another.
2. Weather Vane Tree - filled with ornaments that are reminiscent of the weather vanes on display in this gallery; we have learned the stories behind many of them during our lessons with Christina!
3. Down on the Farm Tree - so sentimental to the older folks, Lisa, Carol, Nan, and Paulette, as it has the big, old-fashioned lights on it. Check out the tree-topper...it's a barn!
4. Victorian Tree - lit with candles; not real, of course, but Paulette told us about real candles being used on early trees. She also told us that Christmas trees were not popular in America until they became popular in England, during Queen Victoria's reign in the 19th century (around 1840). That's why we don't see trees as part of the decorations on/in the restored buildings in CW, which is reflective of the 18th century.
5. Toy Tree - the favorite of many of us (until we saw the grand finale). It has lots of toy ornaments, and it's just so pretty with the "snow" all over it!
6. and 7. Art-full Trees - in the education room where we do our beautiful projects with Christina. These are covered with lovely handmade ornaments like crocheted designs, quilt squares, and flowers embossed on tooling foil.
8. Trades Tree - a very cool tree covered with ornaments representing historic trades like woodworking, blacksmithing, bookbinding, and tailoring. The garland looks like a paper chain, but it's a chain made from wood shavings! The paper star on top of the tree was made from an old copy of the Virginia Gazette!
Kevin had noticed a harpsichord on our tour, and that led Paulette to find out that Kevin takes piano lessons. When we got to trees 9 and 10, she was excited to show Kevin that some of the ornaments were made from sheet music. These are the Music Trees, and there are two that are identical on either side of the entrance to what will be a trades gallery one day.
The twin tree!
11. The Folk Art Tree - also known as the grand finale of our tree tour! Standing 16 feet tall, this tree is covered in over 2,000 handmade ornaments! Pictures don't do it, or any of these trees, justice...a trip to the Art Museums to see them is well worth the time. The museums are open until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays during December, so try to stop by! Thank you, Christina, for hooking us up with Paulette. Many thanks to Paulette, who was an excellent guide who took the time to really get to know us in our short visit together! We appreciate her spending the morning with us, and all of the fun tidbits of info she told us about each of the trees!
From the Art Museums, we made our way to Sal's restaurant where we enjoyed a tasty pizza lunch! Thanks, Arc of Greater Williamsburg, for the special treat. We appreciate the opportunity to dine out with our friends, and celebrate our wonderful time spent together in 2021!
From Sal's, it was on to the CW Visitor Center for a ride on the shuttle over to the Williamsburg Lodge. We popped in to take a look at their lovely gingerbread village! We had a scavenger hunt as we looked for certain candies that were used, and everyone had a favorite building. Many liked the Pet Store! Is that because we will soon be working in one?!?!
From the Williamsburg Lodge, we walked over to DoG Street, where we enjoyed looking at the seasonal decorations on the buildings. The folks who create these pieces do an amazing job with all natural supplies like greenery, pinecones, fruits, nuts, and shells!
Elizabeth was the first to notice this wreath was adorned with oyster shells, which we were just working with to make ornaments last week!
We had a full day in the Colonial Capital. We're thankful for the gorgeous weather and of course, each other's company!
Wednesday
It was back to "work" for us today! We had several items on our to-do list before we could enjoy our holiday movie!
Of course, dancing is how we always start our mornings. It's good to get the blood flowing! Next, we scrolled through last week's blog post. We do this each week, as everyone loves to recap our past adventures, and of course, see their pictures. There were plenty of them from last week! (But this week may top that!)
We prepared The Arc's January mailing today, too. It's jam packed with information so be sure to read everything and stay up to date!
Be sure to check the contents of this mailing! It's jam-packed with information including an end-of-year message from our Executive Director, Pam, flyers for a couple of upcoming health fairs, and the January sign up sheet! (Be sure to return that to the Arc office by December 28!!)
Next, we did one more round of holiday baking so we would have goodies for our family gift bags. Xavier eats a gluten-free diet so Alexis and Patrick helped him bake some GF chocolate chip cookies for his family.
Carol has a "famous" Hawaiian Banana Bread recipe that we decided to include this year, so she worked with Liz, Michelle, Kate, and Devin to mix and bake lots of mini-loaves!
Nan's group, Sam, Annmarie, Laura, and Alexis made sprinkly sugar cookies, a seasonal favorite!
Abraham, Patrick, Kevin, and Drew learned how to make creamy peanut butter fudge! Our goodie bag treats will be very tasty this year!
Here is proof that we were busy bakers and candy makers today! The dishes are done!
We worked on another holiday project. Krafty Karen sent us a kit for making beautiful ornaments that feature a cardinal on a wooden disc. Sam and Annmarie are seen here slathering on the Modge Podge, which will make the picture adhere to the disc, and be shiny once it dries!
We asked the gang why Krafty Karen may have chosen a cardinal to be featured on the ornament and they all said because it's Virginia's state bird! These are nice! Thank you, Karen, for providing everything we needed to make these special ornaments. Our families will love them! (And we can't wait to see you tomorrow!)
After lunch the gang watched The Christmas Chronicles, a movie about a brother and sister who help save Santa from all kinds of trouble, including a jail stint, in order to save Christmas Eve. It was funny, and had great music!
Lisa, Carol, and Nan could only listen to the movie while they tackled the cleaning of our closet! We have a lot of stuff that needed to be organized. It's been awhile since that job was done. Here's a before picture...
Thursday
Today we put our heads together for brain work. Each team was given 32 riddles about Christmas and had to create a poster with their correctly matched answers. Michelle, Kate, and Annmarie worked together to read clues and color the answer pictures!
Devin and Sam laid their riddle and answer cards out before gluing. They had a plan to make sure everything would fit!
Our family gift bags needed to be assembled, so we did that before going to the garden. Sam was showing us how to make a "pillow" with tissue paper to put in the bottom of the gift bags!
Today was the third in a string of beautiful days with spring-like December weather. The forecast was calling for a sunny day with highs near 70, so we hit the park for a picnic and garden check. We met Krafty Karen (opening the gate for us) and enjoyed chatting with her and seeing the changes in the garden.
We've got florets on the broccoli plants!! Karen said they will grow much bigger, and we should be able to harvest them in early 2022. We can't wait to try fresh broccoli! We also checked the cauliflower, but no florets yet. Fingers crossed!
Everyone enjoyed lingering in the garden for a while on this lovely day. Laura, Sam, and Patrick were spotted having a nice chat.
Kevin and Xavier checked things out from a warm, sunny spot on the picnic table bench!
Others checked out the fairy garden with Karen. She told us the succulents will come back in the spring, but for now, they are dying back. It's time for the plants, fairies, gnomes, and critters to take a winter's rest! Thanks, Karen, for visiting with us today, and thanks again for spearheading a great 2021 fall session with the master gardeners. Please pass our Seasons Greetings along to everyone!
Our next stop was to deliver more work we had completed to Eaton. We unloaded the vans and joined James in the warehouse for a final picture from 2021. It's always fun to visit with James!!
Back at the center, Lisa passed out our latest work shirts. These are from Pet Supplies Plus (PSP), where we will begin a new vocational adventure in January. We were in such a rush at dismissal time that we forgot to take a picture. Luckily, Alexis lives with the blog author, so they snapped this shot of the great new t-shirt after they got home. Thanks, Scott and Roxanne (Devin's parents), for hiring us to work at PSP! We're excited to join your team! 🐠🐍🐀🐹🐱
Here we go! Time for Holiday Party, 2021...and that means a lot of pictures! And this time...fewer words! 😜
Festive Friends in their holiday colors!
Playing a fun trivia game called North Pole Pals!
Laura brought everyone a Christmas pen and Kate brought us all jingle bell necklaces! Thanks, girls! So much fun!
We love our custodians, Heike, Sevarina, and Diane! We gave them a gift and some of our homemade treats, too!
Yum! Party food for lunch!
Kevin wasn't with us for most of the day because he had some "sniffles" and his family wanted to be better safe than sorry. His mom brought him by for just a few minutes so he could give Laura the Secret Santa gift he had for her!
Kevin was also excited to receive a gift from his Secret Santa, Abraham! By the time he visited, Kevin's mom said he felt fine, and we were glad we got to see him today!
Michelle was Patrick's Secret Santa!
Patrick was Devin's!
Devin revealed himself to be Kate's Secret Santa!
Kate was happy to be Michelle's Secret Santa!
Annmarie was her longtime buddy Drew's Secret Santa!
Drew turned out to be Abraham's Secret Santa!
Annmarie's face says a lot about how she felt to find out that her Secret Santa, Laura, gave her a photo book which depicts their friendship, as well as their friendships with their other AoA buddies. Very special!
Sam was Xavier's Secret Santa...and...
Xavier was Sam's!
We got down to only two friends left that had not received gifts, and it quickly became apparent that Alexis and Liz were each other's Secret Santas!! Everyone had a lot of fun exchanging gifts. Secret Santa Gift Exchange is no doubt one of their favorite activities all year!
We ran short of time and had to choose between practicing yoga or playing Bingo, and Bingo won!
Just like that, 2021 at the Arc of Abilities has wrapped up. We're off for a couple of weeks, and will be back in 2022 ready to rock and roll! Lisa, Nan, and Carol wish all of our families and friends a happy and blessed holiday season!
Here's our final group shot of 2021 (but missing our friend, Kevin) - with everyone decked out in party gear provided by Abraham's mom! Aren't they cool?!?! Thank you, Mona' for these awesome accessories! From our guys to all of our families and friends: Thank you for your love and support, and we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Lisa will send families an email update in a few days with details about our return to regular sessions on Tuesday, January 4. We are working on coordinating schedules with Eaton and our new vocational partner, Pet Supplies Plus, and trying to get bowling back on our agenda, too! She needs just a couple more days to figure it all out!
Meanwhile, you can SAVE THE DATE for this health fair to be held on January 6th and sponsored by one of The Arc's newest community partners, GYMGUYZ! We hope to see you here! Get 2022 off to a healthy start with the help of GYMGUYZ and the resources available at this event!
Until next year...
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
\
