GREENE – For someone who’s just planned, cooked and hosted a Christmas dinner for 50, Becky Laliberte is in surprisingly good spirits.

At 5 p.m. on Christmas Day, she chatters happily away. “It’s fabulous,” she says. “This is the largest turnout we’ve ever had.”

The holiday is, of course, a fun, hectic and stressful time for many families, especially ones with young kids. So you might think a senior center would be more relaxed?

Well, maybe – but Christmas at The Meadows Senior Living Center, which Laliberte runs, certainly was not sedate.

Tales of Christmases past were told. Scores of relatives visited.

Piles of gifts – including four pairs of slippers for one very lucky resident – were given and received. Thirty-eight pounds of prime rib, 14 pounds of ham and 8 gallons of lobster stew were served, and duly eaten.

“There were so many good stories that tell you where you’re supposed to be in the world,” Laliberte said.

The Greene center has made a Christmas Eve tradition of telling the tales of favorite Christmases past, and every year the residents describe events that remind Laliberte of the meaning of the holiday.

“It’s supposed to be a lot simpler,” she said. “It’s just about what we had today – the 40 who came in to visit our 10.”

The center actually has 20 or so full-time residents, she explained, but half were away for the day. Forty relatives – including one from as far away as Phoenix, Ariz. – came to celebrate with the remaining 10. “My people are all exhausted. They’re smiling, and they’re just having a great time,” Laliberte said.

One man described his favorite gift – a brand-new sled from Paris Manufacturing, which he got 75 years ago. “It was the best gift he ever got in his 80 years,” Laliberte said.

World War II veteran Albert Rowbotham described a Christmas celebrated with Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army in Germany. Entertainer Bing Crosby came to add some cheer. “I was surprised when I walked out and there was Bing Crosby,” he said.

Diamond Angelides said being with her happy family was – and is – always her favorite part of the holiday. “That’s it,” she said.

As for Laliberte, spending the day with so many interesting people – and seeing them so pleased by visits from family – was a gift in and of itself.

Of course, so was the painting of a jumping pig she received on Christmas Day. “It just makes me giggle,” she said.