JENKINS TWP. — Summoning the strength to sound like an older man with a booming basso profundo voice, 10-year-old Benecio “Benny” Carpentier reached somewhere deep in his chest and thundered: “Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donner and Blitzen!”
As the visiting student continued his dramatic reading of Clement C. Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” poem, his audience of residents and guests at Wesley Village’s Partridge-Tippett Nursing Facility smiled in awe, acknowledging the boy’s effort.
“His eyes, how they twinkled. His dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!” Benny read, giving his own cheeks and nose a tweak.
Of course, the lad jumped when the witness to St. Nick’s visit “sprang from my bed” and of course he jumped again when St. Nicholas slid down the chimney “with a bound.” When he drew an imaginary circle around his head, it was easy to picture pipe smoke wafting around the “jolly old elf.”
“I was in forensics, and I learned how to read this way,” Benny explained, adding that he likes to sing, too.
Singing carols was a large part of the Christmas program students from Wyoming Area Catholic School recently staged for the seniors, with tunes ranging from “The First Noel,” “O Come, all Ye Faithful” and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” to “Frosty the Snowman,” “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland.”
Then, after Benny’s performance and a final rousing rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” the children, some of them sporting reindeer antlers or Santa hats, gave hand-drawn Christmas cards and hand-made ornaments to members of their audience.
“We’ve got a little tree we can put this on,” 81-year-old Jim Baker said after a child handed an ornament to him and his wife, Yvonne, who is 78.
While the couple, who have been married for 61 years, said the songs were very familiar to them, other Wesley Village residents said the uniforms the children wore reminded them of their own long-ago school days.
“I went to Sacred Heart School in Scranton,” said Bernice Simmelink, who is 91. “I lived just half a block away, and our choir was wonderful.”
The visiting children’s choir was wonderful, too, Dorothy Evanko said, and they made her feel as if she were back at the former St. Joseph’s School in Nanticoke, singing carols.
“You can tell the children are enjoying it, which makes it nice,” Simmelink said. “It brought back lots of memories.”
As they opened hand-made cards, Evanko and Simmelink admired the Nativity scene and snowman that children named Melanie and Jadan had drawn to accompany messages that said, “Dear friend, I hope you have a Merry Christmas.”
“These are so pretty,” Evanko said.
Mary Ann Paddock-Kaminski from the Wyoming Area Catholic faculty said she and her fellow teachers were glad to arrange the program. “For some of the residents,” she said, “it might be the only gift they receive.”
