A New Christmas Tradition

Rachael had an idea this year. To make cookies and take them to the local nursing home and sing carols to all the residents. Somewhat in hopes that this would be a "pay-it-forward" to those who may not have anyone to visit them on Christmas day in the nursing home this year. Hoping that someone like us would go to the nursing home our Grandma Annie is in, just because, even if they don't know anyone there too!
There was a huge group of us that went to the local nursing home on Christmas Day: Mom, Bob, Rachael and Derrick and their four kids, Madeline, Natalie, and Jason and I. Mom brought her accordion to play and we started going room to room and singing songs like "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger".

We met this lady at the beginning and she liked us so much, she followed us along for almost the entire time! She seemed to like the cookies and tried to hide them in her lap under a newspaper!
This lady was so happy to see us! When we went in her room, we asked her if we could sing a Christmas carol to her and she told me that she would love to hear us sing and that because the weather was so bad, no one was able to come and visit her, we were her only visitors all day!

The kids were such good sports! I think they really liked being there for the residents!

I'm sure they loved our cookies and singing, but they were really interested in mom's accordion! They just loved it!

All the kids were such little sweethearts!

This lady followed us around for a little while too and kept telling us adults that the kids keep thinking that she's one of them! So cute!

We thought we were all done and started heading to the door when this lady and her roommate called out to us. They must have had their door shut when we were walking by and we missed them! But they said they had been waiting for us to come to their room! They were so happy!

There were many who were awake and welcomed our singing, and there were those that were laying in their beds, not sleeping, but looked as if they were a little out of it, but once we started singing, and saw them mouth all the words to the songs, we knew they appreciated us being there. A couple of the ladies started crying once they heard us singing, which brought tears to my eyes too!

The more comfortable we got being there, the more hugs we started giving to the residents. Even the kids got into the hugging mood!

One lady was playing on her laptop and when we came in her room, she said "no cookies for me!" but she said we could still sing to her... as she continued to play on her laptop. After we sang, I asked her if she'd like a hug and she said, "honey, I can ALWAYS use a hug!"

We had so much fun! Jason and I would like to make this a tradition!