Fort William Christmas party a hit with the kids

By Rick Garrick

Fort William First Nation’s 12 Days of Christmas Children’s Christmas Party was a hit for about 300 children, parents and grandparents.

“It’s good for the kids to get out and socialize,” says Allie-Joe Pelletier, noting her young son Cole Johnson was “a little overwhelmed” at his first Christmas party. “He’s having fun; all the kids have fun.”

Pelletier’s two older children Jessie and Aidan also participated in the Christmas party. “Fort William does an amazing job putting the Children’s Christmas Party on,” Pelletier says. “It’s come along, it’s progressed a lot. There’s more kids now and it’s really good.”

The annual Christmas party was held on Dec. 12 at the Fort William First Nation Community Hall and Bingo Centre. It featured 12 stations of interactive activities, including a sing along, crafts, clowns, cookie decorating, balloon making, photo booth and a bouncy castle. Meal tickets for pizza, pop and chips and gift cards for the Intercity Shopping Centre, Walmart and Cineplex SilverCity Thunder Bay Cinemas were also handed out to the participants.

“It’s always been a special event for our community and our kids,” says Cindy Bannon. “I’ve always enjoyed our Christmas party, even as a kid myself we’ve always made it special. It’s great; there’s a lot of activity and my son and my daughter are enjoying it for sure.”

Bannon says the Christmas party helps children to build bonds to the community and their culture. “It gets the community together and the children have fun,” says Leonard Morriseau-Pervais. “They are meeting, talking.”

Morriseau-Pervais’ daughter participated in a variety of activities at the Christmas party, including arts and crafts, painting and play dough. “She’s a little artist,” Morriseau-Pervais says. “She’s having fun.”

Miranda Fenton says her five children enjoyed themselves at the Christmas party. “They’re having fun in the bouncy castle and they got their faces painted,” Fenton says.

Fenton says the Christmas party was different when she was a child. “We actually got presents, so it was kind of a mystery,” Fenton says. “All of the kids were allowed to open their presents while they were here but my mom didn’t allow us to, so we had to wait until Christmas.”

Renee Boucher, Fort William’s director of Youth and Social Development, says it is important for community members to gather together.

“It enables all of our community members, both on and off-reserve, to come together during the holiday season and to reconnect and hang out,” Boucher says. “I can remember when we had our old community centre many years ago — we used to have our Christmas parties there.”

Fort William also held an Elders Christmas party on Dec. 3.