BY AMANDA CHRISTMAN

While the pandemic may have put a halt to their annual Christmas party plans, it inspired a McAdoo group to come up with a new community event.

McAdoo Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary Post 6708 will host a Christmas scavenger hunt. Christmas scenes painted on boards will be covertly placed throughout the community and their locations will be divulged through a series of clues posted on the auxiliary’s Facebook page. Once residents figure out the locations, they are asked to bring props and let their personalities shine before posing for a picture they take themselves, said auxiliary president Jeani Horvath.

“Santa hopes to see everyone in the photos,” Horvath said.

Those pictures can be sent to the auxiliary’s Facebook messenger account and the VFW group will pick their top three favorites before posting them to their social media page where the public can pick the overall winner, she said.

The event is called “Postcards for Christmas,” and because families can take the pictures themselves, provides for appropriate social distancing. Throughout the contest — which will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday — there will be random prize drawings in addition to a surprise for the overall winner. Residents are able to head over to the postcards any time of day or night.

There will be six postcard scenes set up, each of them hand-painted by Horvath, Diane Dowdell, a McAdoo native and Cindy Laing of Lake Hauto, while Sally Updike helped organize the scavenger hunt. One of the postcards will honor the military while the remaining signs depict Christmas scenes.

“We decided to do it because of the lack of interaction we can have with the children this year,” said Horvath, who said plans for their annual children’s party were canceled because there was no way to do it socially distanced this year. The idea for Postcards for Christmas, she said, was a way to allow the VFW and the community to reconnect.

“It’s not only for the kids,” she said, though they’re the ones who are eligible for prizes. The project will give adults something to do, too. Weather dependent, the postcard boards may remain up past the end of the contest to spread holiday cheer and offer people the opportunity to pose for a picture.

More details will be forthcoming on the auxiliary’s Facebook page.

Contact the writer: achristman@standardspeaker.com; 570-501-3584