Two thoughtful Moray locals have brought Christmas and community spirit together by hosting a festive feast at Rothes Hall that is welcome to everyone.
The Moray Community Christmas event is organised by Rothes residents Stephanie Walby and Linda Allman with the help of their team of volunteers to ensure that no one has to spend Christmas day isolated or distressed.
The community Christmas lunch was hugely successful when it was first held in 2017 but after a break in 2018 due to personal commitments, Mrs Walby says “this year we’ve come back bigger and better”.
The team at Rothes Hall’s invite to be a very special guest at the Christmas dinner is open to everyone from across Moray; whether they be single parents, couples, families, people with disabilities, the elderly or young people.
As Christmas can be a daunting and challenging time for many people for a number of reasons, whether it be due to losing a loved one, financial struggles or someone living on their own who may feel particularly isolated from others with all the festivities going on around them.
Mrs Walby says: “We want to take the stress out of having Christmas at home and don’t want anyone to be alone for dinner, so we invite everyone to come together for one big community Christmas extravaganza.”
With careers in social care and catering respectively, Mrs Walby and Mrs Allman conjoined their backgrounds to plan a Christmas lunch that can cater to everyone.
From a team of 14 which includes the organisers’ children, Mrs Allman is one of three chefs who will prepare a festive banquet at 12.30pm for up to 100 people of soup, prawn cocktail, turkey or beef with all the trimmings followed by traditional Christmas pudding or trifle with ice cream and mince pies for those who have some room left.
This is all made possible by the fundraising the dedicated team do throughout the year with monthly bingo evenings, as well as generous donations from Asda and Tesco who both sponsored then as one of their charities.
Mrs Walby added: “It was a really special event last time and I hope this year is even better and we’ll have lots of happy people on Christmas Day.
“I’m most looking forward to seeing everyone’s faces and the pleasure coming together can bring everybody, that’s the true meaning of Christmas.”
