With the holiday season right around the corner, the children of Langdon will get to experience an interesting twist on a classic Christmas tradition.
The Langdon Community Association is hosting a Santa’s Workshop event on Dec. 2 from 1 pm to 3 pm, where kids will be able to buy gifts for their parents, grandparents, or caregivers to give them on Christmas. The gifts, donated by businesses and members of the community, are being priced at $5. All the proceeds raised from the sale of gifts at the workshop will go towards funding the Langdon Recreation Centre.
“It’s a neat experience,” said Chrissy Craig, the chairperson of the Langdon Community Association. “The kids get to pick out something for [the parents] and have it wrapped, and it’s ready. Kids don’t get to do that quite often because they always have a parent with them.”
Santa’s Workshop was an event held annually prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it hasn't operated since then. Craig said that Santa’s Workshop always used to garner great support from the community, and this year's iteration will feature no change to the overall structure to what it was in the past, except for its location, which will be the Qualico Resource Centre in Langdon.
“We’ve created a special place where children can choose and purchase gifts for their loved ones all by themselves,” the Community Association said in a post on their Facebook page.
For those interested in helping, the Community Association encouraged community members to donate new and unwrapped gifts to drop off bins placed at 64 Besse Avenue in Langdon.
People can also contribute monetarily to make the experience “even more special.”
An Amazon wishlist has also been set up online so that anyone interested in buying and donating gifts to the event can see what the potential gifts are. If all the gifts aren’t sold and wrapped on Dec. 2, the Community Association will operate the workshop during the community library’s open hours. However, dates and times for those are entirely dependent on how Dec. 2 goes, said Craig.
Craig believes that Santa’s Workshop has brought a certain level of holiday excitement to Langdon.
“We’ve had lots of people very excited about it,” she said. “We have a lot of young families here, so I think it’ll be very exciting for them.”
