Everyone is busy with the holidays now. Get-togethers, décor, gifts, and family spirit dominate thoughts and plans, whether you are a caregiver or not. Then come the dreary months of winter with barely a few legal holidays to break up the long stretch of wintry weather. The days are short. The outdoors is uninviting. The sense of obligations without fun prevails.
What can we do now to bring the conviviality, family spirit, and connection of the holidays into the second half of the winter? After the credit card bills come and the chill sets in, we are too overextended, overweight, and overwhelmed with the day to day to be creative and take the initiative.
Say I, plan now to incorporate some winter activities into your holiday get togethers and family celebrations. Some can be one-off projects. Some can be zoom get togethers that keep everyone connected on a regular basis. Some focus on the future. Here are some ideas.
At the family holiday celebration, ask for volunteers for family activities for January and February. Keeping these activities time bound makes taking them on less onerous and keeps people motivated to keep the family spirit going.
Be specific in the request for activities. The activities can range from a craft, memento making, and arranging family zoom meetings. Here are some suggestions.
- Ask for a volunteer to gather photos of the holiday occasion and subsequently turn them into a collage for grandma’s wall. Snapfish will make it easy.
- Who will take grandma’s holiday cards and put them into a scrapbook for her?
- Who will order or make a family tree with photos for grandma and all of us? One can use a computer program for names or buy a set of decals in a family tree design and fill it with photos for grandma’s hall wall. Try Temu for cheap options.
- Who will order a jigsaw puzzle of a family photo of past or present that will be a great wintertime pastime for the older adult in the family?
- Who will be responsible for arranging a family zoom once a month for two months and let everyone know about it? Who will arrange the program for the family zoom that everyone can participate in from wherever they are? (such as funny speeches, games, family trivia game, a trip down memory lane, for example)
- Who will be the family scribe and gather a list of good deeds we have done individually and collectively as a family? Who will put together a list of family members who have done fun/interesting things? Who will put together a family recipe collection? These will be shared at the next holiday celebration or at the beginning of March? Some will want to work with a partner or as part of a team, thus deeper family connections will result.
Additional ideas will emerge if you do this right and nurture it before by asking for ideas from others as you plan your holiday festivities. You want everyone to feel ownership and want to participate in keeping the families connected and the senior enveloped by family during the bleak months of the calendar. Plan ahead but be flexible.
Some more caregiver news and advice from Caring Professionals Home Care Agency
