BING-HO-HO-HO!

For the last year and a half, my son and I have been calling BINGO at a local assisted living home on the third Monday of each month (used to be Wednesdays but changed to Mondays this year). My friend, Teresa, works there and makes everything magical for the residents! She is so creative and plans the best activities! So, when she put out a call for Bingo volunteers, I jumped at it. And it’s been a BLAST! The regular Bingoers know us well now and we have fun joking around throughout the hour we’re there. I was especially looking forward to going back this month for a little Christmas gaming with our spunky friends!

Our sweet little neighbor girl joined us this time! Her mama, Rivers, is one of the best mommies out there, always teaching her children to love on others and taking them frequently to nursing homes and such. So, I knew she would be happy to let her oldest join us for the afternoon. Our friend came over early that day to help assemble bags with my son for the assisted living residents. These two have been buddies since they were little and it’s so sweet to see them maturing and doing preteen things together now. They took their job seriously and packed the bags with great care and love. I was so impressed!

In years past when visiting nursing or assisted loving homes at Christmas time, we’ve usually taken little stockings with items such as tissues, socks, candy canes, cookies, and lip balm. This year we went with a game theme! I ordered crossword puzzles and Christmas pens. I’d also bought little clementine oranges to add but when I got them out of the fridge, they were all spotted. I guess I bought them too early, so we left those out. The kids packed the bags in assembly line fashion and closed them with these cute Christmas clothespins my daughter and I found at Hobby Lobby.

With so much sickness going around, I wasn’t sure if we’d have many residents joining us, but we ended up having a pretty good group. More trickled in after this photo was snapped so we had about twenty in all.

They were especially excited that we brought our sweet friend to help out and several said they hope she comes back!

Y’all, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: this place is FUN! The residents have such great senses of humor (ahem, well most do) as evidenced by some of the tree ornaments. Just take a look below!

Isn’t that the best! May we all enjoy a little lighthearted humor in the holiday season!