Lunch with Santa

St. George’s Circle of Friends, an all-girl teenage group from ages 12-18 hosted their 3rd Lunch with Santa event. This year the girls, led by Anaam Asmar, Rita Kas-Mikha, Markel Shango, and junior leaders, Mariah Gorges and Alina Istifu, donated all the proceeds from the event to St. Jude Iraq.

With over 240 attendees, I must say that this event was a complete success! Children truly had a blast from the crafts, music, games, to Santa! A nice speech given by Fr. Matthew Zetouna helped the kids understand the meaning of Christmas and appreciating all the way have in this world.

Each of these girls planned various crafts stations that kept children on their feet making crafts to take home. From making gingerbread homes, coloring ornaments, face painting, painting CD ornaments, making candy cane reindeer ornaments, footprint reindeers, reindeer food, and paper bell angels, the kids were busy having a blast.

To continue the fun, our wonderful DJ, DJ Brian Mansour, played music the entire afternoon that constantly had children on the dance floor. From the conga line to the limbo to hula-hooping the afternoon away, the smiles on each person’s face made the event more pleasant. We even got to end the night with everyone’s favorite, the Mannequin Challenge!

A special thank you goes to our amazing photographer, Riyadh Mansour for the photographs below and for taking photos during the event.

Another huge thank you goes out to our phenomenal Santa. From taking photos with children to dancing to Chaldean music, like the khiga, he had a blast as well as the kids.

Seeing the joy and happiness present on the each child’s faces made even the adults feel as if they were young! Thank you for joining us this year for the 3rd Lunch with Santa event, we hope to see you again next year!