In the spirit of Christmas

RED OAK — Demonstrating the true Christmas spirit of generosity and goodwill, a women’s group at Bethlehem Lutheran Church knitted over 100 pairs of mittens for local children this year.

For more than 10 years, the Bethlehem Women of the ELCA have been sewing hand-made Christmas stockings filled with assorted goodies, including the mittens, for three dozen children who receive immunizations at the county health department.

This year though, they decided to expand the outreach program to include the Lil’ Tigers Preschool, increasing their mitten demands into triple digits.

“They are working very hard at educating the children and making sure they are happy while on a limited budget,” Martha Dahlstrom said. “We are at an age where we can’t be an active volunteer in the classroom, but this just seemed like something we can do.”

Lil’ Tigers Preschool Director Tammy McFarland was overwhelmed by the women’s effort, which not only included handmade-mittens, but handmade bags tied with ribbon and filled with crayons, pencils, animal crackers and cars for the boys and necklaces for the girls.

“When they go that far out and do for others … how many people do that in this day and age,” McFarland asked. “It just touched me.”

Dahlstrom said it takes about 3 hours of knitting for each pair of mittens and that they started working on the project early in the year.

“It’s a very worthwhile project,” she said. “And it was a real challenge to us, and we did it. Just barely, but we did it.”

McFarland recalls telling Martha she was afraid they might be a bag or two short when it came time to hand them out to the kids. Dahlstrom returned two days later with 10 more.

Included in each bag was also a pamphlet with the story of Christmas.

“We feel it is important to do that,” said Chris Johnson, who helped with the project. “For some of them, that may be the only chance they hear the real story of Christmas.”

Despite the more than 300 hours spent on knitting the mittens, Dahlstrom said the women’s group is no different or worthy of recognition than several other organizations.

“I think if you asked every church in the county, you would find a women’s or men’s or some kind of outreach group in every one of them doing something,” she said. “It’s a long standing goal with many different groups: just doing what needs to be doing.”