Doug Jones reporting

Jill Foenander's Christmas cake has become synonymous with the Bellbirds carols night through the years. And this year, the club president personally welcomed the 230 guests at the door with a piece each of her trademark cake.

With that touch of the Christmas Spirit bestowed, guests moved in to their seats to be surrounded in the ambience of the holy season - the result of the creative efforts of a tireless committee.

Roger Foenander and Hyacinth Jones got the carols underway supported by the band consisting of Darrell de Silva, Gehan Gunasekera and Andrew Holland. Hyacinth's solo rendition of O Holy Night sung in memory of her late father Ebert Ragel was well received.

The children were all agog as Santa Claus made a long-awaited entrance and didn't the genial gent have lots of goodies for them. The children showed their appreciation of Santa's visit as many of them were heard to individually say: "Thank you Santa".

Dinner was equally looked forward to by the adults - after all, caring for kids well past bedtime can be an exercise demanding enough to work up a ravenous appetite.

Carols continued after dinner with stalwart Bellbirds member and former Vice-President Tony Rosairo accompanying the singers on the trumpet.

This was followed by the much anticipated raffle draw. Three grand hampers, all fetchingly dressed in large red plastic buckets covered in glossy red tissue paper and gaily 'accessoried ' with green and red ribbons crowned with golden trinkets to top it off were the prizes. Each was worth more than one hundred per cent of the outlay on a raffle ticket. How about that? There were a number of other minor prizes too!

No doubt, there were many, many people who returned homeward that night - and very sleepy children thankfully - filled with much bonhomie and imbued with enough spirit of the season to last them well into the New Year.

Click here to view an album of photos taken by Doug Jones