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Senior University December 2022 Class Highlights

By Christine Hall

Monday, December 5 & December 12
Wednesday, December 7 & December 14

Basic Computer Skills Series*

This is a basic computer class. The series will cover Windows, Web Browsers (the interface to the Internet), using the Internet, social media, email, printers, and computer security. You can bring your own laptop and follow along with the instructor. If you don’t have a computer, handouts of the information will be available.

10:00 – 11:30 am, Bristol View 1^st Floor Bowditch Room

Thursday, December 8

Irish Traditional Music for the Holidays*

An hour of fiddle music and conversation highlighting the approach of the holidays with reels, jigs, and hornpipes with Susan Waters and Margaret Keefe.

2:00 pm, MJ Wicks Wellness Center

Friday, December 9

Back to the Fur Trade– Living History Performance by Karen Haas*

The cast of characters in the fur trade of the Pacific Northwest in the 1800s was a fascinating diverse blend of Europeans, Native Americans, Hawaiians, and American settlers. Meet these people who created the region’s first “shopping malls” as Karen takes you “Back to the Fur Trade.”

Dressed as a Hudson’s Bay Company laborer, she tells the tales, sings the songs, and shows a trunk full of tools and treasures from a time that brought great change to our land and culture.

2:00 pm, MJ Wicks Wellness Center

Thursday, December 22

A Pioneer Christmas: Traditions Across America*

This program explores the various traditional celebrations of the Christmas season as they might be found, across this country during the latter part of the 19th century. As people moved westward, they brought their traditions for celebrating the season with them and adapted them to their new environment.

Dressed in the authentic clothing of a pioneer woman, and using three differently decorated Christmas trees, Tames Alan compares and contrasts how the holiday was celebrated by an upper-middle-class family in an East Coast city, a homesteading community in the Midwest, and those who tried to keep their traditions alive out on the prairie.

Discussed are the significance of presents, crèches, nutcrackers, and what was used to decorate the trees. Tames also talks about the perils of holiday travel and how food played a major part in the celebrations.

When people gathered to celebrate the holiday, there would be music, dancing, and the singing of carols. During this program, the audience will learn the history of and be encouraged to sing some traditional carols that were popular in this era.

2:00 pm, MJ Wicks Wellness Center