By Eleni Himaras
reporter@ltview.com
The Annual Sing Along to support the Green Santa program asked the question this year, “What is Christmas?” Seventy-three performers entertained more than 700 people who brought toys to donate to an organization that helps more than one thousand in need. Seems they figured out the answer.

“It’s just a really good feeling doing something for the community,” Sing Along Chairperson Joann Anderson said.
Each year, the Sing Along group puts on a spring show, solely to raise money for their holiday show. The only admission for the holiday show is an unwrapped present to be donated to the Hudson Bend Fire Department Ladies’ Auxiliary Green Santa Program. This was their ninth year putting on the show to support Green Santa, which has been around since 1993.
“We’ve got some tremendous talent,” Anderson said of the show that garnered back-to-back standing room only performances.
The show was once again directed by Martha Kubala, who had a bit of high tech inspiration for this year’s show.
“This year I went to YouTube,” she said of several lesser-known Christmas carols she incorporated into the show. David Bowie and Bing Crosby originally performed the Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth duet during a one-time only performance on the latter’s show, which Kubala found on the popular video Web site.
“Everything this year was new to us except for Santa Baby,” Kubala said.
She says each year she tries to mingle religious, traditional and new songs to make sure it relates to everyone. They will be able to exhale, at least for a few weeks until practices start for the spring show in January.
Kim Kingsley came to the show with her husband, three children, mother, and brother’s family to watch her father, John Madden, perform a solo of “Birthday of A King.” She said they have enjoyed coming to the show for the past four years.
“We’re here for my dad… plus, it’s all going to charity. Which is great because it teaches our kids too, the benefit of giving to those less fortunate,” Kingsley said.
Each year, the show brings in about half of all the toys for the Hudson Bend Fire Department/Lake Travis Fire and Rescue District 6 Ladies’ Auxiliary Green Santa Program. This year, the program is helping 163 families totaling more than 1,000 people.
“This is overwhelming this year,” said Green Santa Chairperson Jeanne Jarvis. “The economy is bad, where did it all come from?”
The group collects hundreds of toys each year to give to those in need in the greater Lake Travis Area. They collect toy and food donations through the schools, private donors and the Sing Along group.
“Every year it’s fantastic, they have something for everybody,” Jarvis said.
The group will spend this week sorting out toys by gender and age group. If they see any age group lacking toys they will use donated money to buy more. They then allow parents to come in and pick two per child up to 12 years old and one for children aged 13 to 17. The toys will be placed in a box, along with a stuffed animal for each child and stocking stuffers. Next week, the entire staff will work tirelessly to make up bags of food that will help the family through the entire week the children are home from school. The boxes get topped off with an H.E.B. gift card for $20 so the parents can buy the holiday centerpiece of their choice, be it turkey or ham.
“With all the moaning and groaning and saying I don’t think I can handle it again, I’m always right back at it the next year,” Jarvis said of the immense amount of work that goes into the program. “It’s so rewarding.”
Even after families have picked all of the boxes up, Jarvis’ work is not done. She, along with a few other volunteers, will personally deliver holiday boxes to families without reliable transportation.
“No child will go without gifts,” she said. “I go Christmas shopping on the twenty-second of December every year, only after all of the boxes are gone.”
Any leftover toys are brought to the Children’s Medical Center Cancer Ward.