Decorating for the holiday season is one of the best parts of the year for many families. Here are some quick tips for decorating and Christmas activities for elderly and their families.
As Christmas approaches, your elderly adult might be eager to get their home decorated. A festive environment is a wonderful way to boost your parent’s spirits and help them maintain better emotional health throughout the season.
When planning their decorations, however, it is important to make sure their home is ready for the additions in order to make them their most beautiful, but also their safest. So before decorating, here are some things to do to make sure your senior’s home is ready to decorate for Christmas include:
- Make sure the gutters are cleaned out. This is the time of year when the gutters tend to fill with leaves and other debris, which can cause snow and ice to tear the gutters away from the house. This can lead to shorts, breaks, and other dangers with decorations, as well as puddles that can ice over and make hazards for anyone walking into the house
- Empty out the yard. If your parent wants to add decorations to the yard, walk through it first to make sure there aren’t any items leftover from the previous seasons. Remove the sprinkler, lawn implements, and debris to protect decorations and reduce fall hazards if your senior, or anyone else, needs to go out to the decorations to turn them on or off during the season.
- Be aware of the heater. Whether your parent has a central heating system, a radiator, a furnace, or likes to rely on space heaters during the cold weather, it is important to keep these systems in mind when preparing to decorate. You do not want to place holiday decorations, including the tree, too close to anything that emits heat. This can be a fire hazard or create very hot surfaces that might lead to burns
- Clean first. Adding decorations creates more places for dust, dirt, pet hair, and other potential contaminants to build up. This can make it more likely your parent will suffer an illness or allergic reaction. Reduce this risk by cleaning the home first. Give the home a deep clean and remove any clutter you can, and be sure to wipe down the decorations when putting them up as well.
Here are 5 Unique Decorating and Christmas Activities for Elderly Bonding This Season
- Memory Lane Ornaments : Gather any old photos that hold special memories for your lvoed one. Scan, print and cut them into shapes like hearts or stars. Then you can attach a ribbon, and voila! You’ve got personalized ornaments.As you’re doing these, you can try sharing stories related to each photo as you decorate together.
- Sock Snowmen Crafting: For this cute ornament you can try to collect white socks and turn them into cute snowmen. You can fill each sock with rice or cotton/other filling, tie sections with colorful strings to create the snowman’s body, and add buttons for eyes. It’s a simple, hands-on craft that’s sure to bring smiles when done!Even the kids can do it with their granma and grandpas!
- Holiday Storytime and Card Making. You can create a cozy atmosphere by reading classic Christmas stories aloud together with the whole family. Afterwards, why not provide art supplies for making holiday cards?Seniors can enjoy crafting heartfelt messages for friends and family, adding a personal touch to the season.
- Festive Cookie Decorating. If your elderly love on loves cooking or baking, try to do it with them! You can bake a batch of cokies in advanced and go set up a decorating station. Offer icing, sprinkles, and edible colors.Seniors, even those who doesn’t know how to do it before can unleash their creativity, turning plain cookies into festive and tasty treats. It’s a delicious and visually satisfying activity.
- Christmas Carol Karaoke. For another group activity, bring out the holiday spirit with a Christmas carol karaoke session!There are a lot of ways now to do it even without a karaoke machine! Provide song lyrics and encourage everyone to join in singing the classics.It’s a lively and interactive way to enjoy the season together, fostering a sense of community and joy.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed in your role as a family caregiver, this is particularly true during the holiday season when you have all of your regular responsibilities and obligations to handle, as well as the needs of the holidays.
With some of the recommendation above, you can even schedule it and do it with your whole family just to take up a notch on your holiday celebration. Remember it’s never too late to spice up their seemingly monotonous life with some decorating and Christmas activities for the elderly!
Don’t forget that you are not alone.
Companion care services be there for you to help you manage these needs and challenges, make the most of your schedule, and feel less stress.
An elderly home care services provider can step in to fill care gaps, manage a wide variety of care tasks, help your parents maintain more independence and participate in the holidays as much as possible, and more. This helps both of you to enjoy a higher quality of life, and enjoy the holidays more together. You can even customize a care plan if they may need 24/7 in-home health care.
If you or an aging loved-one is considering Home Care assistance in Philadelphia, please contact the caring staff at Correct Choice Home Care today at (267) 323-1700.
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