Here We Go A-Wassailing

Spreading Holiday Cheer Through Song

Hospitals are normally a place that demands quiet, but on Dec. 5, an exception was made which sent the beautiful sounds of the season floating through the hospital corridors of Ozarks Healthcare. 

Teresea Trimmer, volunteer chaplain and wife of lead chaplain James Trimmer, welcomed singers from an area Mennonite community who roamed the hospital singing carols for the enjoyment of staff, patients and visitors alike. 

“The hospital chaplains used to gather and they used to, during the day, go around caroling,” Teresa said. “That kind of dwindled when COVID hit. Three years ago, the leader of a youth choir contacted us and we agreed to take them around the hospital one evening.”

Hospital officials at first thought “youth choir” meant children, so they were surprised the first year when two dozen young adults showed up. 

“These young adults make up the Mountain Grove Mennonite Youth Choir and I think they’re anywhere from age 18 up into their early 20s. They harmonize beautifully,” Teresa said. “They all come in one van and we meet them and take them to every single part of the hospital. They sing for the staff, they sing for the patients. We take them everywhere, to the ICU and we even go into some parts of neuropsych. They’re just absolutely amazing young people and they bless us with their music every year.”

The caroling was a one-night-only performance, but the festive spirit inspired by having Christmas music in the hospital has led the Trimmers to launch a new musical feature in 2024.

“This year, for the first time, we are going to have a sing along in the main lobby of our hospital on December the 19th at 12 noon,” Teresa said. “We are putting out an invitation to all of our coworkers, anyone that wants to join in on our small Christmas sing along. We have a beautiful new piano that was donated to us, and we will have our Christmas tree all lit up.”

Teresa said the presence of Christmas music is more than just something to break the routine of being a patient in the hospital. She said it is also a unifying element for people who either have no family to celebrate with or who find themselves working shifts during the holidays.

“I feel what it brings is a remembrance of perhaps childhood and an easier time,” she said. “Maybe it reminds someone of when they had small children of their own. For me, Christmas hymns bring back my parents, it brings back my childhood and what we did to remember the holidays.

“A lot of the people we serve don’t have a lot in the way of money or material things, so whatever we can bring them, or they can bring each other in a small way, is always a blessing.”