A Christmas Carol

On December 10, 2004, it seemed that the sun shone a little bit brighter on the UConn campus. It was, in fact, the last day of classes. Sure there were finals just around the corner, but the denial was abundant. It was time to celebrate. And that is exactly what the TLC crew did. The first half of our End o’ Semester Gathering involved a visit to the Mansfield Rehabilitation Center. We went caroling through the halls. We would stop into residents’ rooms and sing Christmas songs for them. We even took some requests. Absolutely every person in the group of about 35 students was extremely enthusiastic, which was very refreshing. The residents seemed to really enjoy the carols, many even sang along. As we went in and out of rooms, we handed out hand-made Christmas cards (yes, college students secretly love arts and crafts). We ended the visit by singing for a large group of residents just before their dinner. It was truly a great moment.

After Caroling, we had definitely worked up an appetite. We all retreated back to The Miller Residence. Dr. Tom Miller—our faculty advisor—and Jean Miller graciously invited us to their beautiful house and prepared an amazing meal for all of us. It was truly the type of unbelievable generosity that forces you to feel the Christmas spirit. The food was amazing and the atmosphere was perfect. It seemed for one night that we could forget the craziness of the weather outside, the semester, and life in general and simply enjoy each other’s company. We also exchanged gifts. We discovered who had who for Secret Santa. Also, we distributed our “Nice Things Bags” (we are still trying to develop a clever name for them after two years). The concept behind the bags is that everyone has a bag and in the weeks before the gathering each member writes out a nice message to every other member and deposits it in the proper bag. It always ends up being a really great activity. After all of the gifts were distributed, we surprised Jen Barcellona (a graduating Senior who had been a huge part of the TLC legacy) with a mini-tribute. All in all, the entire evening was a fantastic way to end a semester that was chocked full of fantastic moments. It was a real example of “putting the Christ back in Christmas.”