24/11/2025
Our 7th annual Christmas Event held on Saturday 22nd November in the City Hotel Derry.
We planned an inclusive day of festive fun for our families. With 400 guests attending. Our families have children with life-long or life-limiting medical conditions and attend the Children’s Wards in Altnagelvin Hospital, as well as the team from the Wards and their families.
Together everyone had the opportunity to enjoy a day of festive entertainment and activities, for all ages, and had the opportunity to visit our fantastic Santa’s grottos and have photos taken. We listened to our families and shaped this year’s event to meet the needs of the children attending, offering a diverse range of activities and rooms, including a soft play and a sensory room.
The event was an opportunity to get together celebrate the beginning of the Christmas Season away from the hospital environment our families are only too familiar with, and away from the stresses this year may have brought to them. These beautiful photos were taken by Peter McKane, who really captured how magical and fun the day was. Thank you Peter!
We want to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you to everyone who made our event possible, and for all continued support we get from the local businesses.
Thank you to Annie and Eve for taking the photos inside our grottos and Just Content Studios who provided equipment for the instant photographs for families in the grottos to take home, a keepsake to treasure.
We held this year’s event in The City Hotel, thank you to Samantha and all the team for your support and kindness, it was greatly appreciated.
The fabulous balloons made the venue look amazing. They were provided by Paul and team at AP Events NI.
Christmas games and entertainment was provided by Kate and from BM Promotions & Entertainment and her fantastic mascots, who entertained everyone and provided great balloon modelling.
A very special thank you to Parky Promotions for his two magic shows and staying with us for the full day.
We had two grottos and our Santas were brilliant. Taking the time to speak with the parents and children, Santa could sign to the children and use makaton skills to ensure all children had the opportunity to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. Thank you Mark Rabbett and Gary Carlin!
Thank you to all the team at B&M Cresent Link for helping us when we were buying toys for the children. A special word of thanks to the team at Instant Property Maintenance (IPM) who transported toys and equipment to our storage unit, then again to the hotel and transported our equipment back to storage for us.
Thank you to Lermagh Graphics for printing our Grotto lists and photo cards.
We had a Christmas Disco, music provided all day by James James who was so accommodating and brilliant to work with! James you did a brilliant job!
Thank you to RetroCity Arcades for providing Arcades Games and mascots, to Slush Patrol for popcorn machine, Candyfloss, and crisp wall, as well as our baby soft play area equipment.
A huge thank you to all those who volunteered and supported our event, our volunteers and elves helped us coordinate our sign in area, sell scratch cards, oversee grottos, provided glitter tattoos, looked after all our messy play activities, gave out selection boxes, balloons and activity packs and generally making things fun for all the children. A very special thank you to all our elves, to the Volunteer Investment Project at Gasyard Féile for supporting us with Volunteers for the entire day! We want to say a heartfelt thank you to all our volunteers, for coming together, donating your time, resources and services, and for helping create such a magical afternoon happen for our children and parents. We love seeing you all every year!
Thank you to Anna and team from Anna's Cheeky Faces for providing amazing festive face painting.
We were delighted to be supported by the team at Aspace2 Multisensory Centre who provided us with a fantastic sensory room, this room was extra special for children who felt overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of such a large event, the quiet sensory room provided the perfect balance.
Our scratch cards were an added touch, and all designed and made by the skilled Louise from Sole Designs. We had lots of amazing prizes generously donated. Thanks to SmartPay NI we can take card payments to help support our donations at events.
Congratulations to those who won the prizes on the day.
Thank you to the Western Trust Superheros for bringing the children’s favourite superhero to the event! Western Health and Social Care Trust
Lastly, thank you to the The National Lottery Community Fund Northern Ireland for supporting our charity. Enabling us to make all of this possible for our families.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas & a Happy and Healthy New Year from Altnagelvin Parents Group 💚🎄🎅
(Part 1)
