GENEROUS GIFTS

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21356, 26 December 1934, Page 10

GENEROUS GIFTS

♦- CHRISTMAS IN CITY INSTITUTIONS HOSPITAL PATIENTS FORGET THEIR TROUBLES Christmas was celebrated in traditional fashion in hospitals and institutions in the city yesterday. Superintendents and matrons of the various institutions stated last evening that well-wishers had been more than usually generous in providing for the happiness of those who, afflicted by illness or other misfortune, were unable to spend the festive season in their family circles. Christmas trees, visits from Father Christmas, and gifts must have brought joy to the hearts of many young people in the city's institutions, and the gay decorations and special menus could have appealed no less to the adults.

No effort was spared at the ChristchUrch Public Hospital to make the patients forget their troubles. The wards and corridors were gaily decorated, and all patients enjoyed a special Christmas dinner. Visits from friends helped to cheer up the patients during the week-end, and a Christmas tree, laden with gifts, was a special delight for the children. Carols were sung on Christmas Eve by the nurses.

Special chapel services were a feature of the obser - *ance of Christmas at St. George's Hospital. These were conducted by the Rev. Canon S. Parr and the Rev. Canon H. Williams. The entrance to the hospital grounds, as well as the rooms, was appropriately decorated, and a special entertainment for the patients followed the Christmas dinner. In the afternoon the choristers of St. Mary's, Merivale, sang carols to the patients, and the younger patients experienced the pleasure of receiving presents from a Christmas tree. At the Sanatorium Those bed patients and others unable to travel who remained at the sanatorium during the Chi-istmas season were not forgotten in the celebrations appropriate to the occasion. The wards were brightly decorated, and a special Christmas dinner served, each patient receiving a present from the Sanatorium Service Society. Christmas carols were sung on Sunday. Those patients able to travel are allowed a fortnight's absence from the sanatorium. These, together with those remaining, held a party last week, before leaving on the Thursday or Friday. . Yesterday was a day ot real happiness for the inmates of the Salvation Army Rescue Home, the matron told a reporter of "The Press" last evening. She said that the many generous friends <sf the institution had enabled the girls to enjoy a fine Christmas dinner, and to receive ice-creams and other sweets in the afternoon. Early in the day there was a visit from the Salvation Army Citadel Band, which led in the singing of carols, and then there was a visit from Father Christmas. On Saturday high tea was provided, and games wers held in the evening in the dining-room, which was decorated in green and old gold, Iceland poppies, and sweet peas.

Returned Soldiers' Christmas Much appreciated assistance was given by the Returned Soldiers' Association in the few days preceding Christmas to unemployed returned soldiers registered with the association. The original list of. those to whom orders for groceries and meat were to be supplied totalled 777; of these, 182 were found to be on the list of those receiving similar assistance from the Rotary Club, and the association in consequence dealt with 595 •individual families or cases. Representatives of the association also visited the sanatorium, the Christchurch Public Hospital, Rannerdale Home, and other institutions, and distributed approximately 160 parcels of comforts —cigarettes, tobacco, chocolate —to returned soldiers in those institutions.

The secretary, Mr E. F. Willcox, remarked that these expressions of the executive's desire to make some little extra effort for the Christmas season, in providing some additions to the larder, had been greatly appreciated. Many letters and other indications of this appreciation had been received. The cost to the association would total approximately £3OO.

Gifts for the Children Although many of the children of the city's orphanages spend the Christmas with relatives or friends, there were many to welcome the visits of Father Christmas yesterday. Gifts were received by all the girls at St. Saviour's Home, there were colourful decorations, and they attended special services. The boys and girls in the Presbyterian Homes wakened to find stockings and pillow-slips bulging with presents, and special meals were provided during the • day. The Rotary Club's shilling, in an envelope addressed to each child, was a welcome gift. The boys and girls will leave shortly for their annual camping holidays. Christmas, thanks to the generosity of many friends, was celebrated in appropriate fashion at the Men's Guest House yesterday. Arrangements were in the hands of Mr A. Kermode and some willing assistants, and the menu drawn up was a most attractive one. Breakfast for the men consisted of cold ham and eggs, and cigarettes and socks were For lunch there was roast beef and pork, new potatoes and broad beans, and nuts and raisins, and for tea cold meat and ham with appropriate trimmings, jellies and trifles, and tinned fruits and nuts. Provisions and other assistance were received from the Fendalton vicarage and many anonymous friends. The Rev. P. Revell, in expressing his thanks to all who had helped, remarked that there was one gentleman who kept the GuesC House in meat throughout the year, but who firmly refused to have his name made known.

Special leave is given to maijy patients at the Sunnyside Mental Hospital to enable them to spend Christmas Day with their families or friends, but, for the large number left behind there was a special Christmas dinner, a great deal of the materials for which had been grown on the institution's farm. The hospital, too, was gaily decorated with home-grown flowers and foliage. Many of the patients were taken for walks or picnics during the day. On Christmas Day, discipline was relaxed somewhat at the Paparua

Gaol, the rules customarily observed on a Sunday being kept." The prisonei s were allowed in the exercise yard from 9 a.m. to noon, and agam in the afternoon from 2 p.m. Christmas dinner was served at mid-day. Church services opened the clay at the Women's Reformatory, Addington, these being conducted by the Rev. Father Joyce and the Rev P. Revell. A sumptuous Christmas dinner was provided by friends of the institution, and in the afternoon the officers of the Salvation Armv gave a Christmas party. The corridors were appropriately decorated, and the staff saw to it that even those who received nothing from friends had some small gift to mark the season.