Celebrating the Holidays in Nursing Homes

Holidays are times for family gatherings. Unfortunately, these gatherings often times do not include loved ones that are in nursing homes. For various reasons, a lot of the people living in nursing homes are not able to leave to join family gatherings away from the nursing home, and their families do not always go to them. As a result, these people are often very depressed during the holiday season.

I had the opportunity to help residents like this though the holiday season. I worked at a nursing home that included the residents in holiday preparation and helped them to celebrate. Here are a few of the things we did to bring joy into the lives of these people.

For Easter, we asked residents of the nursing home to fill plastic eggs with candy. They filled over 200 eggs. Then, the activity staff hid the eggs. Each member of the nursing staff partnered with a resident and helped them hunt the eggs.

For Halloween, the staff dressed up in simple costumes, and did a reverse trick-or-treat. Rather than going to the rooms to get candy, we went to resident rooms to deliver candy, or another treat, depending on the resident's diet restrictions.

During Thanksgiving preparations, we asked the residents to make decorations for us to put up around the building. They had a wonderful time making these decorations. They were also included in making cookies for the staff and residents to enjoy. It wasn't much, but it helped these people feel like they were a part of it all.

My favorite time was Christmas. We put up a total of three Christmas trees in the building. The largest one was in the parlor area. The staff all picked the name of one or two residents, and bought gifts for them. On Christmas, we gathered all of the residents by the largest tree, sang Christmas carols with them, and gave them their gifts. For some of these people, it was the only Christmas gift they received. All of the residents really enjoyed this celebration.

I feel that those living in nursing homes benefit from being included in activities like these. They seemed to be less depressed when family members weren't there because they knew we would have a special celebration for them at the nursing home. They knew they would be included in the holiday celebrations regardless of whether they were able to leave the home or not.

I am sure that other nursing homes across the U.S. do similar things for the holidays. This really does improve the quality of the resident's life and makes them smile. They feel more at home in the nursing home and tend to realize a little more that the staff really does care. It also helps to combat depression in the residents who are unable to leave the facility for the holidays.