Presbyterian Churches Join Together to Bring Joy Through Cookies and Caroling

McDowell and Monterey Presbyterian Churches joined forces to deliver cookies throughout Highland County to celebrate the Christmas season. This is the second year this project has taken place, and many of the delivery teams included caroling to make the season even brighter.

I spoke with Pastor Beth Pyles to get information about this wonderful event.

“Last year Tammy Minnigh’s son Conner had to do a community service project and out of brainstorming ideas, the cookie share came out of that. So last year Conner spearheaded the project with the help of his mother and the community. But the cookie plates, we actually had some cookie Christmas plates that people had donated from our yard sale that we do at Maple Festival,” said Pyles. “So we thought, we had the plates. So we just decided to move forward with that.”

Last year the team delivered about 30 plates of cookies. This year that number jumped to 45.

“We had a good turnout for last year and then this year even more,” said Pyles. “I’ve talked to people this year already who were just thrilled with their plates. Everything is homemade. There are so many people who donate and participate, making the cookies and the candy, donating the plates, and then gathering it and assembling it and then delivering them. It’s just a great community project, and it’s a way young and old come together very nicely and have a good time and reach out to people who sometimes aren’t feeling the joy the way other people are. I think it’s been a really nice project, and I hope we are able to do it again next year.”

Let’s listen in on some of this Christmas fun:

(singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas)

(Thank yous for singing and cookies)

Here’s Pastor Pyles again with a note about people working together, specifically churches.

“There are tons of ways to reach out to people and churches working together too, which actually happens all the time but people who aren’t churched don’t always know that. And sometimes they are surprised. We do things together all the time!

I’m going to let the carolers sign us out because I think they say it best:

“Merry Christmas!”