VALLEY — Valley Haven School hosted its annual Christmas lunch in the school’s cafeteria on Friday.

It’s an opportunity to enjoy the holiday season with families of persons served by Valley Haven and the school’s long-time supporters.

“We’ve had a good year this year, a great year in fact,” Craig Brown, Valley Haven’s executive director, Craig Brown, said. “The Hike/Bike/Run raised over $100,000 for the 30th year in a row. We are already planning for the 2020 Hike/Bike/Run and we are hoping for it to be bigger and better than ever.”

Brown said he was pleased to have more than 100 friends of the school to sign up for Friday’s luncheon.

“We are happy to have them coming out to eat with us today,” he said. “We’ll be taking them on tours of the school. We are having a door decoration contest today, and they will be able to see what we’ve come up with. All of them are really good.”

There are eight classrooms at Valley Haven, a room for socialization class and one for music.

“We have a music class now,” Brown said. “Chris Miller teaches it two days a week.”

One of the highlights at LaFayette Day in April is the performance by the Valley Haven chorus.

One of the busiest rooms on Friday was the Valley Haven Christmas Shop. Guests took advantage of the opportunity to browse for Christmas gifts and to pick up something tasty from a bake sale being held by the school’s Aktion Club.

Judges in the door decoration contest had a tough task in picking the winners. All entries were outstanding. One of them had a Charlie Brown Christmas theme with the Peanuts gang gathered around Snoopy’s dog house, which was adorned with blinking Christmas lights. Another door depicted the green hand of the Grinch presenting a present at a Christmas tree with the expression “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store; maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

One of the doors had a large depiction of Frosty the Snowman on a blue background. Frosty had a big smile on his face as he was showing one of his baby pictures. Of course, that was when he was just a snowflake.

“Socialization is so sweet,” was written in big letters on the door entering socialization class. The brown papered door had large candy canes, suckers, gingerbread men and gumdrops.

One door looked like a huge wrapped present with yellow paper and a big red bow around it.  It had a big grouping of Christmas ornaments and a cheery greeting of “Holiday Vibe!”