Bringing in the Christmas Cheer

Nearly everyone in high school has a thing. A thing that they do that takes up their free time. It may be a sport, a club, an organization, or maybe its community service. Among many other interests in athletics, theater, and ASB, Teagan Gardner is extremely involved in her church.

As a member of the 8th Ward of the San Diego Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gardner and her family have always had religion as a huge part of their lives. For her Senior Project, Gardner decided that she wanted to give back to her church and organize the annual Christmas party.

The party was held at Gardner’s church, where a traditional Christmas dinner was served to about 100 members of her church.

To put on the Christmas party, Gardner said she had to, "prepare all the decorations and make sure she had enough for all the tables and to fill the room."

On the day of, Gardner had to set up the space where the Christmas party was being held and decorate the stage for the dinner program.

Gardner noted that the most challenging part of her project was, "Probably the people that I asked to be in the program not getting back to me." She continued, "It was a challenge to try and plan around them."

But, Gardner overcame this obstacle by thinking on her feet, and making changes when necessary. She explained, "I had to make quick changes to the program itself because of the changes they made on their own without telling me."

While Gardner’s father acted as the emcee for the program, there were a few people either singing a holiday tune, or acting out a story that Gardner relied on to play their part in the production.

Under all this pressure to impress her community, Gardner pulled off the night with flying colors by hosting a huge dinner buffet that she helped prepare and was served by volunteers.

And to accompany dessert, the dinner Christmas show went extremely well even after the challenges Gardner faced.

The evening ended with a visit from Santa Claus himself. All the children were able to tell him what the wanted for Christmas and get a miniature candy cane.

This may seem like a huge task for a high schooler to put together by herself but Gardner assures, "I knew it was a big project but I wanted to take it on and also my experiences in ASB had background knowledge and I wanted to help my church community."