"Better to give than receive"
It's been a very busy month at the Hammond Garden Club, lots of preparations for Santa's visit to Hammond. It's all a part of what we do as stewards of our community. We have promised to decorate two trees for the North Oaks Health System, one is in the main lobby of the Rehabilitation Hospital on Morrison Blvd. and the other is in the lobby of the Outpatient Rehabilitation Clinic on Robin Avenue.
We arrived 10 AM at the Re-hab Hospital fluffing branches and lining up the ornaments....beautiful mauve colored birds, some with their wings spread in flight and others perched on their nests awaiting the birth of their babes.
There were spheres of all sizes, glittered or sequined in gold, silver and mauve, golden branches of leaves, ting-ting which are long slender sticks curled on their ends, glittered and added to the branches, curly ends extending out prominently showing it's graceful swirly intention!
The top of one tree had huge back to back gold mesh bows with masses of golden grasses underneath them as if they emanated from a golden fountain! The top of the other tree in the Outpatient facility had an exquisite angel gazing down at the beauty we had adorned her branches with. Both trees had lots of gossamer gold garlands, silver and mauve ornaments, some showy and ornate, some exquisite and delicate, all very beautiful.
From there we traversed on to the gazebo in Cate Park knowing we must accomplish this in time for the Christmas parade the next night. More fluffing of garland, making huge red bows and entwining little white lights inside the garland and covering it with red netting. There were huge red and white striped candy canes and bows that hung at each column in the gazebo. It was a long day but lots of fun was had by all.
Before our next civic project there was time for more fun at our own Christmas party. It was held at the same place as the last 4 years which is the First United Methodist Church in Ponchatoula. It is a
wonderful facility and the perfect size for our garden club.
But before we get to be there we must decorate! This time of year our middle name is "decorated by"! Linda Ryan and her band of outlaws (hostesses for December) included Johanna Dagro, Sylvia Dileo, Marta Licthl, Phyllis Mire, Juanita Pearson, Leah Sadden and Carolyn Schwebel who created beautiful center pieces using many different kinds of greenery to make wreaths that were embossed with deep rose colored and pastel pink roses, green and white mums and alstroemaria. In the green and flowered wreaths were teal, fuchsia and silver glittered ornaments with clear tall chimneys holding lighted candles in the center all sitting centered on fuchsia table cloths. A pretty change from the traditional colors of red and green that made for a cheery, happy event assisted by wonderful Christmas music coming from the keyboard and voice of Becky Eymard with many of us singing along, getting in that real Christmas spirit, adding so much to the joy of the party!
As usual we began the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and our Chaplain Mary Thornhill led us in a beautiful prayer before we were served our fantastic meal of mixed green salad and hot rolls followed by baked potato soup. The entree was either pecan crusted fish or orange marmalade infused chicken breast with sides of scalloped potatoes and braised brussel sprouts. And the "piece de resistance" was a wonderful slice of pecan pie. All of which could be followed by coffee and iced tea. It was a meal fit for a king (or queen as it was in this instance), prepared by Don and Pat Hutchen and crew of workers and servers. After these holidays are over I know what my New Year's resolutions should be......and I don't like it!
Our President Carolyn Schwebel, announced that we would be having a small amount of business since this was supposed to be a party! She called on Jewel Jamal for the Link Award for November which was Ron Macaluso, Attorney at Law, 111 North Oak Street and December's winner was the Quick Way Exxon Station at the corner of Morrison and University.
Our Scholarship Award was presented to Jeremy Sadden, son of member Leah Sadden. He is a senior at SLU getting a degree in Occupational Safety, Health and Environment which covers Integrated Pest Management as it relates to landscaping, underground water level and pollution, much of which our garden club is all about.
Mary Thornhill chair person for Arbor Day reported that Barry Chance Cub Scout leader from the Presbyterian Church said that his troop would like to be involved in the planting of the walnut tree that we will be putting at the Post Office sometime in January.
Glenda Nelson informed us about Keep Hammond Beautiful is in dire need of recruits to help in cleaning up sections of Hammond. Please get with her to sign up for this great organization.
Linda Ryan thanked all those that supported the fish fry or gave donations for the training of her granddaughters service dog and Carolyn thanked all of those for the prayers for Phyllis Mire's husband that suffered a heart attack but is doing well now. She also thanked Gail Diebold for taking the reins once again by getting everything together for the Christmas decorating projects that the garden club was involved in and thanked me for putting together the Veteran's Day Event in November.
This year we have decided we don't need or even want, any gifts for ourselves, so we didn't want to steal each others gifts in the dirty Santa game or sit on Santa's lap to be asked if we had been a good girl, (most of us hadn't), but Peggy Dunn our Parliamentarian heard about a school Springfield Elementary that lost all their books in their library in the flood this past August. So it was decided at our last meeting we would all bring books to refurbish their library as our Christmas gift. There were three boxes at last count and more coming! Gosh it feels so much better to give than to receive especially when it is for such a worthy cause!
There were seven stunningly beautiful deep red poinsettias that were the door prizes and went to myself, Penny Daigle, Margaret Hawkins, Paulette Hebert, Marta Lichtl, Maisie Parker and Eldie Stafford.
The meeting was closed to the terrific Christmas melodies of Becky Eymard and anyone else that sang along. It was a wonderful day filled with fun and fellowship and Christmas giving!
Two days after our meeting we had been contacted by the HOA Board Members of the Elmwood PR II Subdivision by Trent Anthony, Rachael Capaci and Cameron Crockett requesting that our garden club judge their subdivision for Christmas decorations for first, second and third prizes which they would provide and award.
Ladies attending the two car full parade of judges were Deborah Garafola, Mary Thornhill, Shirley Pellichino, Sylvia Dileo, Carolyn Schwebel, Juanita Pearson, Phyllis Mire, Clara Houston and myself. We took pictures, wrote down addresses, even jumped out of cars when something was in the way of the picture. When we had driven the route twice we decided to go for lattes and hot chocolate to make our decision. Oddly enough when dealing with nine different women we were able to come to the same decision almost at once on the winners. We laughed (a lot!) and had the best time doing another civic duty. We emailed pictures and addresses to Rachel Capaci for them to take it from there. We are in hopes they liked our decisions.
Wow we have certainly done a lot these last two months.....had a wonderful Veteran's Day celebration, decorated two trees for North Oaks Hospital, decorated the gazebo for the city, awarded the Link Award with the Chamber, gave a scholarship to a student in need, bought fish for a dog to be trained for a child, helped refurbish a children's library and judge a subdivision's decorations! We are so accomplished and it feels so good to help so many!
The Hammond Garden Club is a proud member of the DistrictVI Garden Club Federation and the Deep South Region of the National Garden Clubs doing our best to unify and beautify our homes, gardens, our city and our nation every day to the best of our ability. God Bless America!
.....and we would like to wish you and yours a Blessed and Merry Christmas and Peace, Love and Good Health in the New Year!
by Linda Broussard she is a member of the Hammond Garden Club
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