Ways to Help the Elderly for Christmas

The Christmas season, for many of us, brings on feelings of joy, excitement, and holiday cheer. But others may instead experience feelings of depression and loneliness during this time. The elderly are most susceptible to this, especially those that live alone or have undergone some major life changes, such as moving out of their home and into a retirement home, or are struggling to meet financial ends meet, or may be experiencing more and more health problems. It can be a difficult time for many of these people, and while there are many charities and such that help those in need, such programs geared towards the elderly seem to be few and far between.

If you have an elderly friend or neighbor that lives alone or you think might need assistance or quality time during the holidays, listed below are several things you can do to brighten their spirits and help them to have a good Christmas.

- Help decorate their home for the holidays. A lot of times elderly people aren't physically able to deck their homes out in holiday gear, especially when it comes to putting lights and such on the outside of the house. This doesn't mean they wouldn't like or benefit from having a cheerfully decorated house, though. Offer to help put up some decorations, and after the holidays are over help them take the decorations back down and pack them away.

- Help them go Christmas shopping. Just because an elderly person might live alone doesn't mean they don't have family that they'll be exchanging gifts with or sending gifts to. However, shopping during the holidays can be quite overwhelming for all of us, with all the crowds bustling around. It can be even worse for older people, and even further if they have such inhibitions such as being unable to drive around to go shopping. Offer your assistance to go with them to go shopping, or put it in such a way as asking if they'd like to come with you to do their shopping while you are doing your own.

- Help with the gift wrapping. This can be a daunting task, especially if there are a lot of things to wrap. Offer to help them with this, as well as anything else they might need to do with the gifts, such as taking them to the post office to be sent or addressing envelopes of Christmas cards that they will be sending out.

- Help put together a Christmas dinner if they are to be hosting one for visiting family members. This can either come in the form of helping them arrange what the meal will entail, or helping them grocery shop, etc.

- If they are to be spending Christmas alone, invite them to your family's Christmas dinner. This alone is something that can greatly lift a person's spirits and ensure them to not be lonely on Christmas.

- Give a gift or baked goods of your own. A person who may be spending Christmas without family may not be receiving many, if any, gifts and will probably greatly enjoy receiving something thoughtful, whether it's something bought at a store or a batch of homemade cookies.

- Take them out to holiday events. If you and your family enjoy going places during the Christmas season, such as driving around to look at the beautiful lights or attending holiday festivals or plays, invite an elderly neighbor to come along with you.

- Just spend time with them. One of the main things that cause the holiday blues in some elderly people is loneliness. Help combat this by spending time with them, whether just stopping by their house to talk, or inviting them out to lunch.

If you don't know any elderly people personally who might need any holiday help or company at all, head out to a local retirement home. A lot of people that have to live in a retirement home have no family to spend time with, and generally spend all of the holidays stuck inside the building. Bringing some cookies or other baked goods to a retirement home and spending some time with some of the residents there can be of great help when it comes to helping someone else have a good holiday.