Staff at Points West Living Stettler, along with several community members, have succeeded in brightening up the Christmas season with a special musical project.
“We are so excited about this - it’s an idea that head office had - they are doing one so we thought that we would do our own,” said Carol Dyck, general manager at Points West Living Stettler Inc.
“We had four family members (take part), we also had the high school send us a little message, and we some of our own staff members contribute, and we even had some of our residents included, too. So we are going to put this little virtual concert together - it’s probably about 45 minutes long I think - and we can play it over and over again for our residents,” she explained.
Contributors to the project include Garry Fix who taped a song and sent it in, as did Town Councillor Malcolm Fischer.
Eric Rahn, the band teacher at William E. Hay Stettler Secondary Campus, also put together a little presentation to be included as well, said Dyck.
“Myself and a couple of other staff members also put together a (rendition) of the poem The Night Before Christmas,” she said. “So there is a little bit of everything.
“Also, a couple of our residents who are really good singers did a song for it also,” she said.
The DVD will be produced in the coming days.
In the meantime, Points West has thankfully been spared any COVID-19 cases. There was one close call when a family member became infected and had visited the facility before hand.
So the particular resident was isolated, tests were done, and they all came back negative.
“So we were all fine,” said Dyck. “That’s our hope - to keep it out of here as best we can.”
Of course, the Christmas season overall looks quite different this year as well.
In normal years, there are potlucks and a family dinner with all the trimmings, to name just a couple of popular holiday traditions at Points West.
“There are lots of local new Canadians who bring their international homemade dishes to the potluck and it’s so much fun, but we couldn’t do that this year,” she said. Instead, some special foods will be prepared for a celebratory meal.
The family dinner of course can’t be held either, but residents will be enjoying another special dinner this week.
“They are all going to get dressed up and it will be a roast beef dinner,” said Dyck. “So it’s something fancy.”
Looking back over the past year, there have been a number of challenges with keeping COVID-19 at bay. But there has been a silver lining in it all.
“In some ways, it’s brought us all closer together because we all have a common foe,” she said, reflecting on the year. “We are working together to make it safe for everyone, and the staff has been just amazing.”