Goshen, N.Y. – Dec. 4, 2009 - Ninety-year-old Margaret Sullivan remembers standing in the living room of her family home as a young child just before Christmas. She wanted to light the candles in the ornaments on the tree, but her mother wouldn’t let her. Too dangerous for a small child, her mother explained, maybe when you’re older. That was roughly 80 years ago.

Now one of those same candle ornaments graces the branches of a 10-foot Christmas tree in the Rhinebeck Room at Glen Arden, Elant’s continuing care retirement community. It is joined by hundreds of other ornaments – all different shapes, sizes, themes, and materials - contributed by different Glen Arden residents each year.

It’s all part of a tradition that started at Glen Arden even before the doors officially opened. Dee Steeger, Glen Arden’s assistant administrator, tells the story every year at this time, just before the ladies of Glen Arden begin their annual tree-trimming festivities.

It was Christmas 1995, six months before Glen Arden would welcome its first resident. Roughly 100 people, all “priority holders” who were interested in becoming Glen Arden residents, were invited to a holiday party at the Cottage, once an information center for Glen Arden. Each invitee was asked to bring a family ornament to contribute to the tree. Once the season was over, those same ornaments were to be packed up for use the next season, this time on Glen Arden’s first official Christmas tree.

“It was such a pretty tree that first year,” recalled Sullivan, who moved into Glen Arden just three days after it opened its door in June 1996.

Sullivan was joined for Friday’s tree trimming by another original Glen Arden resident, Betty Hurd, who at over 90 years old still hand-places ornaments on the tree each year from a step ladder.

Cabiria LaRocca, who joined the Glen Arden family in 2000, doesn’t place ornaments, but she enjoys watching the process and joins the festivities for the comradery and tradition.

“It is a very pleasant way to start out the season, and I like being around all the girls,” she said.

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Elant, Inc., a community-based, not-for-profit organization, is a leading provider of services for older adults and chronically ill people of all ages. Elant is a comprehensive network of organizations that provides a full range of health and housing services to the Hudson Valley and beyond. On any given day, Elant serves more than 3,500 people through its network of communities, home care agencies, and services. Elant’s mission is to provide personalized, high-quality care and lifestyle options to persons of diverse generations, cultures, and needs.