Regardless of faith or cultural background, holidays can be challenging for older adults, whether they live at home alone or in a senior living community. As a family, you might be anxious about making the holiday season one that reflects on past rituals while establishing new traditions. We have some suggestions for creating a warm, inviting, and joyous experience for everyone.
Brighten the holiday season with family
One challenge in creating a positive holiday experience is ensuring that all family members can participate. Adult children have their own traditions and may be reluctant to interrupt them. However, with careful planning, you can engage family members in holiday events. Reinforce how important it is to accommodate a loved one if they live in a care center.
Ideas that incorporate family members:
- The family caregiver visits the senior loved one and facilitates a video call with other family members. This allows the senior loved one to stay in touch with family, and the family caregiver can remove technology barriers by operating the device on which the call takes place.
- One family member picks up the senior loved one and brings them to a family get-together. In this scenario, the senior loved one doesn’t need to figure out logistics and can still spend time with family.
- Create a show-and-tell with grandchildren: They each bring a toy, game, or favorite activity that they can share with the senior loved one. This will provide conversation-starter topics and an agenda to help enliven the senior loved one’s time.
Reimagine traditions if they can’t continue as usual
Some traditions may need to be adapted to your loved one’s living situation. For example, if the family tradition is for everyone to gather to watch the children open presents, you might need to change the plan.
Ideas that reimagine common holiday season traditions:
- Gift-giving: Save money and time but focus on showing appreciation for your loved ones. Each family member gets assigned another one at random and writes a heartfelt letter to that person. After everyone exchanges letters, have some fun and play a game as a group.
- Opening presents: Ask the youngsters to select their favorite gift to bring and show to their loved one. If the gift is too large or cannot be brought along, they can take a picture of it on a parent’s phone and show it to the senior loved one.
- Preparing the home for a holiday event: If your loved one used to host the holiday events, they might miss the hustle and bustle. Invite them over on a day leading up to the event and have them go through photo albums. Take out a few of their favorites to display at the event as a family highlights photo set.
- If your family has a lot of digital photos, assist your loved one in curating a collection of images to use as a screen saver or to display in a digital picture frame or slideshow. You (or a tech-savvy grandchild) can even add a soundtrack of favorite seasonal tunes.
Decorate to get into the holiday spirit
Many older adults love holiday music and decorating. Discuss your loved one’s preferences with them before deciding on how to decorate their living space to make their room inviting and cheerful.
Ideas to decorate their home or living space with holiday cheer:
- If they live in a facility, ask if there are any restrictions. Many communities put limitations on decorating due to facility upkeep or safety precautions. If possible, purchase a string of battery-operated lights that you can hang across their windowsill. Display framed pictures of past holiday gatherings.
- Consider focusing on a theme, such as heirloom decorations, items that reflect a favorite hobby, or ornaments made by children over the years.
- Consider safety risks. If they live at home and you don’t feel comfortable setting up decorations that can cause trip hazards, participate in a different holiday activity that will get them in the spirit. Play their favorite holiday songs at their home and decorate a gingerbread house. These decorations last for a while, so your loved one can enjoy them for some time before discarding them.
Bring joy with holiday feasts and treats
Food is a significant part of any holiday season. If a loved one in senior living has favorite foods, prepare them beforehand and reserve a room for a family gathering to eat and visit. Some assisted living communities will provide the dinnerware. Older adults who live at home alone might want to participate as much as possible in preparing a holiday meal, but offer to help to reduce stress. For example, you might shop for ingredients and handle cleanup afterward.
Ideas to bring culinary happiness:
- Ask your loved one about their favorite treat. Procure those, and if possible, put some together for the facility’s staff. You can tour the facility with your loved one and give out their favorite treats to those working there.
- If your loved one used to cook or bake, talk about their favorite dishes to cook for the holiday. Work together to write out the recipe for a dish or two, then make copies and give them to family members as gifts. If you have photos that feature family members enjoying the treat, include copies of them as part of the package.
Celebrate the holiday season in small ways with outings
If possible, arrange to take your loved one out to holiday light tours or other events. Visit friends and neighbors, especially if they are also older and less mobile. If religious services are important, consider helping your loved one attend during the holidays. If attending in person isn’t feasible, see if their place of worship offers a video service, such as via Zoom, and help the older adult access it.
Outing ideas:
- Many towns have a holiday light show in which families can drive their cars through a decorated area. If this is available and possible for you and your loved one, take them out to see the sights.
- Is there a residential area nearby where the neighbors go all out with holiday decorations? Pick up your loved one in the evening and go for a drive through that area. This can be a quick trip but still a great pick-me-up. Remember to play holiday music in the car.
- Bring your loved one to your home to spend time together. They might sit and chat with you while you wrap gifts or entertain children with a holiday movie.
Support your loved one’s holiday shopping
Your loved one may want to give gifts but might need help. Offer to help make a list and shop for gifts for family and friends. You can wrap presents together, which can be fun. If handwriting is difficult due to arthritis or vision loss, offer to write gift tags. Also, many older adults still want to send holiday cards and may need assistance writing and posting cards to friends and family.
Shopping ideas and alternatives:
- Support your loved one in writing a list of what they’d like to give to family and friends. You can also help them order the gifts online so they don’t have to go to several stores.
- Consider creative gift ideas that might not cost your loved one much but that they’ll still enjoy giving. Custom voice or video gifts allow a loved one to record a message that the recipient can save and cherish forever. A thoughtfully chosen photograph with a note on the back can serve as a hand-picked memento for a family member to save.
Your loved one may be at home, in a retirement community, or in a senior care center. Each living situation presents unique opportunities and challenges to brighten a senior’s holiday season. If they live in a senior community or a nursing home, you’ll want to call the facility to make sure you know the rules and potential limitations to what families can bring or do there. And if your loved one lives at home, you can likely help bring them happiness by handling logistics, transportation, and physical tasks as much as possible. This will help them enjoy the holiday season safely and comfortably.
Holidays might look different for an older adult as their life changes, but that doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy the season. Old traditions can be fond memories, and family and friends can create new traditions. These ideas can enliven your loved one’s holiday season.
