Christmas Tea in a Bright Red Bow
Tis the season to give and get presents and Vistans received a big gift this past Sunday from 2 to 4 pm. It is a gift that the Vista Historical Society gives every year. Christmas Tea, without tea, but with lots of sweet food, great entertainment, and Santa Claus. And it is free to everyone!
The traditional tea has been held at the Gloria E. McClellan Senior Citizen Center for years but this may be the last time it will be held here.
Photos by Mary Murphy
Board members of the Vista Historical Society started decorating tables at 12:30. They set up a coffee service, a holiday punch bowl, and two tables loaded with cupcakes, lemon cookies, cheeses, finger sandwiches, cookies, blueberry donuts, fruit and more. Raffle prizes were set on the edge of the stage where at 2 pm the Moonlight Youth Choir would be performing.
The first guest wearing a cheerful red sweater arrived at 1:30 and took a seat at a table in the middle of the room. She declined to give her name and you won’t be able to pick her out in the photographs we took because, believe it or not, there were a lot of red sweaters in the audience. She was followed by an overwhelming turnout. I’m not exaggerating. I personally had to dig out several more tables from along the stage so people could find a place to sit.
Among the dignitaries attending were Norm Halus and friend Irene, The Huntalas Family, the Drakos Family and Winifred and George Meiser. City Council Candidate Victoria Wauffle also attended the Christmas Tea. Selling raffle tickets for the Vista Historical Society were Vista Teen Princess Leslie Martinez and Vista Teen Prince Brad Whitener.
Soon it was time to start and President Carolyn Chiriboga started things going by leading the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance and Michele Moxley gave the invocation. While the choir was setting up their sound equipment people lined up to pile goodies on their plates. Then Carolyn introduced the choir and in they marched. They came single file winding past tables to the side wall and up the stairs to the stage. The tallest led the way and as soon as they took to the stage the entertainment started. They wowed and delighted us with their singing and finished to a standing ovation. Many of us approached the Choir Director, Debbie Nicastro, to tell her how much we enjoyed the kids and how talented we thought they were.
This was the present. The big red bow was imaginary (in my head) but it was truly a gift. It should have had a big silver tag reading “To: the City of Vista and all of the residents” “From: The Vista Historical Society.” The Board members who gave their time and effort to make this happen are: Carolyn Chriboga, Michele Moxley, Janice Klafehn, Alan (Spike) Harvey, Sandi Graham, Paula Nix, Sharon Larimer, and Jack Larimer. Barbara Meech and Allen Klein from the Senior Citizen center support the event. We thank all of you for this present!
Merry Christmas!
As you can see from the photos – a good time was had by all – including me:-)
I certainly hope this wasn’t “The LAST Christmas Tea”. That would be a sad title to any story.