The stockings were hung by the chimney in care at the Edmonton Golf and Country Club December 5th , as our Rotary Club celebrated the Christmas Season with our annual dinner and gala. This is always a classy affair, and a lovely venue for our Christmas party with excellent food, drink and service , with it’s nice Christmas ambience. We had a youth choir singing Christmas carols in the background during our cocktail hour.
The Master of Ceremonies for the evening was Rick Harcourt. He did an admirable job keeping the evening running smoothly, and added some party games to see what table got to go the buffet line first, second, etc. He added some good humour to the evening. One of his best jokes was, “What is worse than Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer with a runny nose? Frosty the Snowman having a hot flash!” He did mix things up by having Ron Dobbin say his eloquent , and surprisingly short grace after dinner.
Stephan Jansen van Vuuren, our Sargent at Arms, also mixed things up, by recognizing a number of Rotarians in the room for their positive contributions to our club over the years. These included Audrey Martin, Dianna Parker, Eric Solash, Hans Granholm, and Betty Germain. He presented them each with a jumbo chocolate toonie coin.
Our Christmas charity of choice was the same as last year, the Shoebox gift program, to provide a box full of toiletries and other items for ladies in women’s shelters in the Edmonton metro region and beyond. The Shoebox lady was at our dinner and spoke about how their program has grown over the last few years, and how excited she was to see all of the Christmas boxes they were receiving from our Rotary Club at the end of the evening. Positively impacting people’s lives locally and internationally on a daily basis is what Rotarians do best.
Ken Sutley rounded up a Christmas choir spontaneously at the end of the evening to lead the room in singing some classic Christmas carols and to get in the festive spirit.
And as the Rotarians and guests headed home it was heard from above, Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night!
