Celebrating Christmas in Recovery Across the Region

Festive greetings, positive thoughts, and warm wishes to you all. While this time of year is no doubt challenging for many people in this country, especially in these last few years, we always strive to help as many people as possible enjoy Christmas and Community during December.

And in 2023, with our staff and volunteers in more service areas than ever before, we’ve created events from Wearside to County Durham throughout the month.

In Darlington, our newest formed team cooked up a festive feast early in the month, marking the team’s first end of year celebration since becoming part of the STRIDE Partnership, earlier this year.

And in Sunderland, we organised a Recovery Service at Bethany City Church, and were joined by colleagues from CGL, Neraf – and others – and heard the experience of guest speaker, Kieran Brady.

Meanwhile, the first Christmas party in Stockton took the form of a quiz, at the popular monthly event over at the Stockton Recovery Service Building.

In Middlesbrough, the Recovery Connections Choir gathered to perform at the town’s In Out Of The Cold event, just a few days after a festive edition of the fortnightly Sober Social, held at Connections Community Cafe throughout the year.

And last, but not least, the Gateshead Recovery Community laid on a panto as part of their own Christmas celebrations. The Wizard of Hope (video above) was co-created at the Gateshead Recovery Partnership Jackson Street building, and took centre stage on the day of the local Christmas party.

And, at the time of writing, there’s still three more festive events to come, across the charity.