By BERNADETTE LAURITZEN
Executive Director
LARSO
This week, I am all about focusing on the opportunity to create memories.
I have lived here 25 years. Once I knew we had the Lads of Enchantment, I was hooked for life. They have a performance Oct. 18, and if you like A Capella music, this is the group for you.
The Lads, along with the Santa Fe Harmonizers, will lift for your spirits for one night only. Live in Harmony, is the theme for 2019 and it sounds like a moral, we all could use.
They will hold an afterglow for a small fee, following the big event. This is a chance to hear more music, in an intimate setting. They feed you too, so life is good. If you are lucky, you will be up close and personal, to hear some mighty fine melodies and harmonies too. One former Lad, Terry Langham use to tell me, “It’s not over, until the audience sings.” It is definitely worth the trip.
Pumpkin carving will be the event of the year in 2019! How often can you spend just $5.00 and have your place solidified with a world record-breaking attempt? Please join the Los Alamos Arts Council, as they need 1,300 of us to make it happen. Check out their website to find out the details, but let’s do this thing. Los Alamos could be known across the world for creating not just 1,300 smiles, but at least twice that, if you count the pumpkin’s smile too.
There is so much to do this month. On Halloween Day, families with small children are invited to visit a building full of grandmas and grandpas for an hour. Costumes are welcome and parents can quality control our treats, when they get home. A daytime trick or treat event, will happen at the Betty Ehart Senior Center, for those who would like a safe place to stop.
Families can show up just before 11:30 a.m. as seniors are preparing for lunch. We’ll take our mini parade through the lunchroom, so seniors can enjoy the costumes and pass out treats. We can pose for pictures and send them to parents to mark the memory, and create a special occasion.
Families will delight in allowing seniors to see the ghosts, goblins and more, well before the bewitching hour.
When I began my relationship with the senior center, we had a program called, Grand Friends. It allowed those of us with no grandparents to have a special interaction. The center had many built-in grandparents that would fuss over our kids, and be glad to see them. We could share in their accomplishments and the seniors would relish their delight. I can recall just such a parade through the lunchroom and thought that it might bring joy to both sides.
I wonder if I could find such a photo? If so, check out our Facebook account in the next few weeks. I’m sure as a mom, and ironically now the Director of the senior centers, it might fetch a laugh or two.