The end of the year often brings togetherness and giving – values shared across holidays like Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hannukah. Thoughtful gestures can make cold winter nights feel warmer and bring people together.
That spirit was on full display Tuesday as 28 families gathered in Mercy Hospital’s rotunda to receive Christmas trees and presents donated by staff members. Twinkling lights illuminated colorfully wrapped presents, hot cocoa, cookies and smiling faces.
The Adopt-a-Family Christmas Tree Decorating Contest aimed to give families facing financial hardship a festive holiday. Susie Tipton, Mercy’s facility educator, said the hospital partners with the La Plata Family Centers Coalition and Los Compañeros to “adopt” families in need.
“The trees are a little friendly competition with our hospital, where our departments compete for the best decorated tree,” she said. “Some departments choose a patient or family that they’ve cared for that’s made an impact on them, or they choose an employee within their department who’s in need that year.”
Jenn Rast, a family navigator with Family Centers Coalition, said Mercy’s efforts ties compliment the coalition’s Project Merry Christmas, a toy drive for children in La Plata County. In 2025, 550 children from newborns to age 17 signed up.
“Project Merry Christmas is for the children only,” she said. “What we’ve been really encouraging this year is that families or friend groups sign up to sponsor a specific child, and they get their wish list, and they actually go shopping for that kiddo or that family or the group of siblings.”
Rast said sponsoring a child provides them with a personalized experience, giving kids who are less well-off an opportunity to have a magic-filled holiday. Mercy’s program goes a step farther by giving entire families that experience.
At the beginning of the holiday season, an announcement is sent out to the hospital’s departments to gauge which ones would want to participate. In 2025, 28 of those departments – from environmental services, which includes housekeeping, all the way up to C-suite and the Mercy board – participated, Tipton said.
Each department then chooses a family or a community member and requests a list of items that are needed and wanted from each. The hospital buys the Christmas trees, and over the course of the season, department staff members compile the items on the lists – such as toys, cookware, clothing, tools or gift cards to go sledding at Purgatory Resort – buying and wrapping each on their own time and dime. At the same time, it gives hospital staff members something to look forward to with a little light-hearted competition.
“Our employees are the ones who fund this event,” Tipton said. “The hospital itself only supplies the tree and the cookies and the cocoa, and everything else is done by our employees.”
Lynda Berger, a nurse at Mercy and member of the hospital’s Touch, Love and Compassion team, said the program is meant to spread compassion. These families may be experiencing hardship – whether that be financial, medical or something else – and by giving them this experience, they may be able to experience joy as well.
“We see our fair share of suffering,” she said. “You just always have this desire to alleviate that suffering to the extent that you can. And this is another way to live that out and do it outside of medical care, and providing that care within your role in the hospital.”
That is the definition of compassion – seeing another person’s suffering and wanting to help them through it. Berger said Mercy’s program is a great way to do that for the 112 people making up the 28 families. And what better time than the season of giving?
“You can see as people are coming out and seeing the trees, just the fun and awe and wonder and joy,” she said. “It’s that spirit of the season – you just see it, and you feel it.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
