What an exciting week we had to wind up 2025 and celebrate the Christmas holiday with our friends! We hit the ground running on Tuesday with a visit to The Art Museums of CW to see beautifully decorated trees, followed by stops at the Williamsburg Lodge to see the gingerbread house, and then on to the Stryker Center to see the Night Before Christmas exhibit. On Wednesday, we got flower arrangements made for CSL, welcomed our therapy dog friends for a jolly good time, and had a heartwarming visit with Tessa. We partied at Carol's on Thursday and at the center on Friday to round out a very festive week!
Tuesday
We had a snow day last Tuesday and couldn't make it to visit The Art Museums to see the trees, but luckily, Christina was able to squeeze us in for a quick tour this morning before she had another commitment! The catch was...we had to arrive at 9:30 - before the museums opened!
Christina was the birthday girl today, so we quickly sang to her and gave her a card before the tree tour. Happy Birthday, Christina! We hope all your wishes come true! (And, because of snow days and tight schedules, we look forward to our traditional celebration for you to be held in January!)
There are several decorated trees at the art museums in addition to the grand tree in the atrium. Christina heads up the team that decorates them all. This year, the trees were mostly decorated with ornaments that were made in 1975 when First Lady Betty Ford chose "An Old Fashioned Christmas in America" as the theme for the White House tree. Over 3,000 ornaments were made by staff and volunteers in Colonial Williamsburg for the tree, located in the Blue Room of the White House, shown here.
Blue Room Christmas Tree, 1975; photograph by Joseph H. Bailey
After Christmas, most of the ornaments were returned to Williamsburg, and are carefully kept so they can be used each year on the large tree at the art museums, but this year, some of them are featured on the smaller trees, too!
The "toy" tree is one of our favorites each year, and this year, when we got to it, we noticed there were small gifts under it that bore our names on the tags!
Christina and her husband, Michael, had made each of us a fidget spinner on their 3-D printer! (Now we know why Christina wanted to know our favorite colors recently!!)
Aren't they nifty?!
Thank you, Christina and Michael, for these thoughtful and fun gifts! We will get good use out of them, and think of you each time we fidget with them! Many thanks to Michael, also, for designating a donation, through his work at Newport News Shipyard, to the Arc of Abilities! We are very touched by your generosity! Merry Christmas to you both!
From the art museums, we walked to the Williamsburg Lodge to check out the big gingerbread house. There wasn't an info label to read this year, so we don't know the stats, but there were lots of cookies, candies, and frosting on it! It's Santa's Workshop this year.
Our last stop for the morning was the Stryker Center. We wanted to see The Night Before Christmas exhibit that was curated by Faith Page '26, a W&M student. She connected the 1923 poem by Clement C. Moore, a 19th century author who helped popularize the image of Santa and his reindeer, to traditions that stemmed from early American history. We really enjoyed the images in the exhibit.
The late Nancy H. Marshall was a longtime Dean of William and Mary Libraries. Her collection of "A Visit From St. Nicholas" features over 1,000 volumes. Many prints and book covers from her collection are highlighted for this display.
Michelle did a great job reading about the reindeer dashing away.
We listened to a reading of the poem by Nancy H. Marshall, too!
After our morning of seeing holiday favorites, we returned to the center for lunch, Choice Time, read-aloud, and more work on a tasty gift for our families! 🎅🤶
Wednesday
What a fun morning with the therapy dogs and handlers!!! We got to meet another new duo today, Jennifer and her chihuahua/schnauzer mix, Joey! Everyone was in the holiday spirit as we welcomed our friends and then worked in our reading rotation groups.
Marisol and Tucker, who was so cuddly today, read with Liz, Abraham, Kevin, and Nan.
Thomas and Michelle got a dog each, as they read with Caroline, Indy, and Pip!
Kent, along with Leo and Tavish, enjoyed the books Annmarie, Gail, and Alexis chose. Today's theme was Christmas.
Carol S. and Casey were all ears as Erik and Kate read their selected books. Carol looks cute in her Santa hat and Casey was handsome in his new bandana.
For our third rotation, we played a game where we matched lyrics with Christmas carol titles. Singing the lyrics helped with the matching!
We enjoyed delicious iced sugar cookies made by Vicky and chocolate peppermint cookies made by Caroline for refreshments, along with hot chocolate made by us! Vicky also made doggie treats using pumpkin and wheat flour, and the pups loved them! Thank you very much, Vicky and Caroline! Your cookies were just divine!!
Our December tradition when the therapy dogs visit is to sing carols together. Kent accompanies with his guitar, Carol S. conducts, and we sound great!
We always enjoy Carol S. and Kent's rendition of "O, Holy Night." This is just a snippet of their beautiful duet.
We love our therapy dog friends! What a great year we had reading and doing other literacy activities with them! We can't wait to spend time with them in the new year, too!
🐕🐶
After lunch we visited Tessa! We have great news to report...she's returning to Arc of Abilities in January! She's worked so hard to regain her strength, and today we got to see her walk down the steps and visit with us on her own two feet!
Tessa's mom, Michelle, was at her teaching job, but her stepdad, Chris, proudly watched her walk down the steps to see her friends!
It was a joy to see Tessa's face light up as we told her how much we missed her and that we were looking forward to her return to the program.
We made an extra arrangement of flowers for Tessa this morning, and also gave her some holiday gifts. Merry Christmas, Tessa, Michelle, and Chris. We're so happy for Tessa's good health this holiday!
Thursday
Today...we had Holiday Party #1! It was our annual movie day at Carol's Cinema (also known as the theater rooms in her basement)! She sets up 2 viewings so we all have a choice.
This group chose Santa Clause 2. We want to thank Carol's son David, shown standing in the blue shirt, for getting today's movies set up on the screens in Carol's Cinema rooms! He had to leave for his work at Sentara Hospital, but had time to make sure the technology was working for us!! Thanks so much, David!
We also had puzzles and coloring pages available. Xavier enjoyed working a puzzle and feeding Kayla some of his popcorn!
This group, along with Carol's dog, Kayla, chose Frosty and Rudolph. They enjoyed singing along with all of the songs!
After the movie we enjoyed sandwiches from Jersey Mike's for lunch. Carol set several tables to accommodate us all, and we thank her for that! It was just like being in a restaurant, with lots of conversations taking place at each table. Carol's husband, Gene, joined us, and that's him sitting with Carol, Abraham, and Bryan. We're thankful that Allison could join us. She's at the table in the first photo. Carol stays home on this day, and Allison comes over to help her with final preps for us. Thanks so much to both of them!
Next, it was time to decorate our dessert! Each year we turn brownies into Christmas trees, and it's a tasty tradition we look forward to as we wrap up our wonderful day at Carol's house!
This is everyone except Annmarie. She was in the bathroom, and we didn't realize she was missing. 😦
Friday
Today we enjoyed each other's company as the holiday spirit filled the room. We socialized, played games, sang and danced, welcomed guests, ate lunch, and exchanged Secret Santa gifts. It was a quick, but fun, day!
Merry Christmas from our awesome Arc of Abilities members!
Liz, Thomas, Abraham, Devin, Bryan
Patrick, Michelle, Drew, Alexis, Annmarie
Cameron, Kate, Gail, Laura, Kevin, Erik
Xavier
Thank you families for the gifts to Nan, Lisa, Carol, and Allison. Your thoughtfulness and generosity are much appreciated. We are privileged to work with our incredible AoA members, and thank you for sharing them with us!
Games are always a big hit! We love our North Pole Pals trivia game each year, and of course, Bingo is a favorite. We invited Tracy and Conor from Parks & Rec to join us for lunch (and Katrina, but she was at the dentist and arrived later). They arrived just in time to lead our Bingo game!
There's nothing like party food! Our delicious spread included grilled chicken nuggets, bbq meatballs, mac n cheese, veggies and dip, chips, grape salad, and fruity Jell-O!
A big thank you goes to our friends at APEX-PT and Movement Center for donating scrumptious Christmas cookies, and Allison for the homemade chocolate fudge! Dessert was great!!
Oh...we had Grinch Punch, too! Soo yummy and fun!
Thanks for joining us again today, Allison. You're such a helpful elf and we appreciate you!
Finally! What the gang was really waiting for...the Secret Santa gift exchange! Everyone did a great job selecting gifts for their chosen person, and it was heartwarming to watch as they shared them with one another. This was definitely the highlight of our day!
Katrina arrived in time to watch the gang share gifts! She's in the bottom photo wearing the twinkly reindeer antlers!
We wish everyone a joyful, peaceful, and safe holiday! Thanks for your enduring support of The Arc of Greater Williamsburg and The Arc of Abilities. We look forward to an exciting 2026!
Image by pngtree.com
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
Tuesday, Jan. 6: We'll kick the year off with bowling and pizza for lunch. After lunch we'll celebrate National Technology Day by using the laptops to help update our calendar for January, and play some games. If time permits, we'll start a new read-aloud, too.
Wednesday, Jan. 7: It's Service Work Wednesday so please wear Arc shirts. We'll arrange flowers for CSL and volunteer at GCOC's Food Pantry. It's time to celebrate the first birthday of the new year! Allison's birthday was December 31 so we'll make BBQ Chicken Sandwiches and Pasta Salad for lunch...and cupcakes, too! We'll also have a fun activity for National Bobblehead Day.
Thursday, Jan. 8: We'll be at the center today so we'll have lessons and activities for World Braille Day and National Trivia Day, both of which were January 4th. Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is offering Domino's Pizza or Assorted Wraps.
Friday, Jan. 9: We'll be busy today as we send one group to work at PSP while the other group prepares for our belated birthday celebration for our CW Art Museums friend, Christina. After lunch, Christina has a fun craft experience for us (think snow)! Please wear PSP shirts. Breakfast casserole and fruit for lunch.
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