5 Tips for Making the Holidays Easier for Seniors

Christmas is a stressful time of year for everyone. With parties, programs, dinners, and shopping, there is little time left for anything else. Many elderly people downsize their Christmas basically because they can not handle all of the holiday duties. I have seen this in my own family. My grandmother, who once spent an entire month planning for Christmas, ended up with nothing but a table top tree. My own parents, who are in their 80's, are going down the same road. I suddenly realized that as adult children we owe it to our parents to provide a great Christmas for them. With our own children and some of us with our own grandchildren, sometimes our elderly parents get left out. How can we, as adult children make our elderly parents Christmas a bit brighter? Here are some suggestions. My family has already incorporated a few of these suggestions.

1. Dinner arrangements for Christmas day are such a hassle for an elderly person. They move slower, and seem to take forever to get the dinner ready, if they even are physically capable of doing so. One idea is to have family members each bring a dish. My parents still want to contribute something, so they cook the turkey or ham. By having all of us bring a dish or two, we reduce the stress on my parents of wondering how to fix dinner for an entire extended family.

2. Offer to decorate the tree for your parents. My parents have arthritis and it is difficult for them to reach the high branches. If your parents insist they can still do it on their own, even though you know they can not a great idea is to have someone take them out to dinner, while several family members secretly decorate the tree.

3. Convince your elderly parents to use gift bags. With athritic fingers, my Mother is having more and more difficulty wrapping presents. She took such pride in her professionally wrapped gifts. Finally, we convinced her to use gift bags to put all or her gifts in. This makes wrapping simple for her.

4. Rather than having elderly parents worry about gifting everyone, draw names. This way the financial responsibility of giving so many gifts doesn't fall on them.

5. Introduce Internet shopping to your elderly parents. Mine do not even own a computer, but by using my wireless Internet, I was able to show them some places to purchase gifts. This makes it easier for the elderly to purchase gifts.

By concentrating on our parents and their needs as senor citizens, we can make their holidays easier and happier. There is no reason for an elderly person to downsize their holiday when family members help out.