Post office ‘winter wonderland’ brings holiday spirit to customers

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  The RAF Mildenhall Post Office has recently undergone a transformation into, amongst other things, a winter wonderland.

Seven volunteers, made up of two Airmen and spouses from the 100th Communications Squadron and Team Mildenhall, spent many days - and on their own time - decorating the hallways and walls of the base facility to bring holiday cheer to customers.

"Our commander brought the idea to decorate the post office, and we just flew with it," said Staff Sgt. Gloria Jolly, 100th CS quality assurance evaluator, explaining that another Airman - Staff Sgt. Alexandria Rader, 100th CS commander's support staff NCO in charge - worked hand-in-hand with her to make the transformation.

"We definitely made it a lot bigger," Joly said. "I think what he was expecting was for us to just get a tree and decorate it, but once I formed a team to decorate the post office, we just started bouncing ideas off each other. We wanted to really awe people, and came up with the idea of decorating each hall with a different theme. We first decided on a Star Wars theme and just went from there."

Many of the decorations were funded out-of-pocket and hand-made by the team of volunteers. By working together using their crafting skills, they produced a vast array of decorations which took much time and care to hang around the hallways.

Their imagination came to life in the form of Harry Potter, The Grinch, Star Wars, Rudolph and other reindeer, the movie "Elf," and Winter Wonderland themes.

"We wanted to give people that kind of morale that maybe they're lacking this time of year; I just love to craft and do things like this," Jolly said.

Rader explained that they felt doing this was important both for families and single Airmen who may be experiencing their first Christmas away from home and their families.

"Our commander wanted to show that as a squadron we're all family, especially with new people coming in," she said. "When I first got here three years ago, I felt alone and isolated, and didn't really know anybody. By doing this, we wanted to show everybody that we do this type of thing to raise morale and have everybody feel like we're all together.

"For first-term Airmen who are here at their first base, and it's their first time away from home and away from the states, if they see stuff like this it helps them remember what it's like to be back in the states and around family," added Rader.

The post office has hundreds of customers through its doors each day, especially throughout the holiday season, and the team of two Airmen and spouses wanted to give something back to brighten peoples' day.

"This touches the many people on base that come here," added Jolly, describing how she has received many positive comments about it. "Every morning before I go to work I'll come here and hang things up that may have fallen, and I'll put them back on the wall or ceiling. Every time I'm here, someone will come up to me and say how beautiful it is and this is the best they've seen this post office look.

"It's nice to be appreciated - our goal was to make people happy and just bring cheer. This is for the spouses too, and the kids who had to leave home and the friends and family they knew; I think it brings an excitement for this time of year," she said.

"Our leadership was incredibly supportive, and the spouses who helped put this together are incredible, and the sweetest people you could hope to meet," said Jolly, adding they intend to decorate again next year, and go bigger and better. "What I'd love to do is decorate the outside and put a little 'wow' out there - I think the kids would really love it!

Spouses who were part of the decorating team were Junko Schell, Charlotte Mauk, Kelly Ford, Lori Prater and Jeannie Comley.