Home Becomes Wonderland in Gesture of Love

‘Through my pain, I was able to give all this love. Just to see those little children is so rewarding.’

--Carmen Rodgers

Carmen Rodgers is fighting cancer, but this Christmas she has converted her Laguna Hills home into a wonderland for special children.

Four nights in the past two weeks, scores of children from the Childrens Hospital of Orange County and group foster homes have celebrated Christmas at the Rodgers home. All either have cancer or have been abused.

For Rodgers, 51, a part-time nightclub singer when she is well enough, the dream began two months ago. Initially, she had thought to give half her singing earnings to abused or sick children.

“But I just didn’t want to go to a hospital and say, ‘Here, take this,’ ” Rodgers said Saturday.

She decided to call Disneyland and department stores and ask if they would provide materials to decorate her home for the celebrations. All turned her down, saying they did not do such things and, besides, it was too late in the year.

“Ten minutes later, somebody from Robinson’s called and said they’d try and do it. Then everyone else started calling back, saying the same thing,” Rodgers said.

Everyone Pitches In

A group of Nordstrom decorators set up a train display in one room. Robinson’s constructed a family Christmas dinner scene. Disneyland sent a Christmas train for the front yard and built a miniature home. Rodgers built a glass nativity scene. A scene with reindeer sleeping in small beds was put together by a Laguna Beach store. All donated toys.

“All the boxes that Nordstrom sent were marked ‘LOVE,’ ” Rodgers said.

The children, which have numbered about 200 and will include another 125 this week, receive a snapshot of themselves with Santa Claus, a $10 gift certificate to a McDonald’s restaurant and a gift.

Rodgers was present for the first two celebrations but missed the last two because she had to return to Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach for chemotherapy treatment for the bone marrow cancer doctors discovered two years ago.

But she plans to be home for this week’s final two celebrations.

She wants to beat the cancer, but it is a day-to-day ordeal. Her sister, Phyllis Dell’olio, has been with her for three months, helping with the project and comforting Rodgers on the nights the effects of chemotherapy riddle her with pain.

“We are very close. But we’ve gotten a lot of love from a lot of people for this project. It’s been very rewarding,” Dell’olio said.

Rodgers sees her Christmas generosity as a way to heal.

“I get out of it the total fulfillment of being able to share the love that we all need during our own tough times,” she said. “Through my pain, I was able to give all this love. Just to see those little children is so rewarding.”

Even Rodgers’ old poodle is named Love. Her husband, Don, a builder, said she has always been full of life.

“I don’t feel sorry for myself,” she said. “I’ve never been angry with God for getting cancer, and I never will. I’ll go on living for however long it lasts,” she said.

Rodgers said she is “not scared. I will do my part, and God will do his.

“But I tell you, I felt like a big pain was gone when those kids were at my house.”