The small Co Londonderry village ensuring everyone enjoys Christmas

It’s the final countdown to Christmas day and one small village in Co Londonderry is working hard to ensure no one is forgotten this festive period.

Moneydig is home to around forty families.

This year the rural community network arranged its 23rd Christmas event, and they were visited by a very special guest from Lapland.

Santa travelled the long distance with the help of the littlest of friends - a Shetland pony called Simon.

“It’s absolutely fabulous for the children,” Simon’s owner Janice explained, adding that the community spirit is “amazing”.

Santa isn’t the only famous face in Moneydig. Elvis impersonator Andy Roger recently bought a house with his wife in the village.

“There was a house that was vacant up the road and I said, ‘We’ll just move in here’ and we’ve loved it ever since,” he told UTV.

“We’re part of the community and I made the hot chocolate tonight, so Elvis is alive and cooking!”

The small-knit community looks out for everyone by delivering special seasonal parcels and lunches to residents throughout the year.

“The community does Valentine’s Day, you get your lunch and some sweets and at Halloween you get shortbread. They do Christmas as well,” explained Ellen Buxton.

She is a parcel recipient and explained “it’s not the matter of getting anything. It’s the importance of somebody thinking about you.”

“It means everything.”

The idea behind the parcel deliveries grew during lockdown.

“A lot of our ones here had to shield, had to isolate, had to stay in because of their age or because they had illnesses. So we just started to do food parcels,” said Secretary of the Moneydig Rural Nework Patricia McQuillan.

She added: “With the cost of living we’re going to find a lot of working poor people and these are people who have worked and their money barely covered their expenses and now it’s got to the stage where the expenses have doubled."

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