Gearing up for the Holidays

The Holidays are upon us and as Activity Professionals it can sometimes cause a little anxiety.  After years of being an activity professional, I no longer enjoyed the holidays.  I felt as if my workload tripled and my pay stayed the same.  Decorate here, decorate there, decorate everywhere, take it down here, take it down there, take it down everywhere and then start all over.  Party here, party there, party everywhere.  Then my boss would want to know why my office, which could better be described as a glorified closet, was such a mess.

I was expected to throw a Halloween party not just for the Residents but their family and the staff. Next came Thanksgiving and a party for all the Residents their family and then a party for the staff.  Christmas followed this and then New Years Eve parties. Every year it seemed to be the same thing over and over.  I had gotten into a rut and did not even realize it.

Then one Christmas my residents came to me and wanted to know if they could do a Christmas program for their families and the staff.  They wanted to reenact Luke 2 the Christmas Story.  They wanted to dress up like shepherds, angels, Mary and Joseph, the 3 Kings and even the animals. They actually had practices and helped send out invitations.  I found costumes or made them and we presented the Christmas story to their families and the staff.  It was amazing.  It reminded me of why we do all the holidays things.  Several of them were asked why they did this and everyone of them said it was hard to make it to their grandkids programs and wanted to be able to do something for their families.

I also had an assistant that said to me why do we have to just do all the normal things, can’t we do some cool stuff too?  I asked her what she had in mind. Her favorite holiday was Halloween, and she loved trivia.  She had started a Travel club in our facility that included passports with stamps.  She planned a “trip” to a haunted house.  They learned how to hunt for ghosts and what signs to look for.  It included all kinds of trivia which they loved telling staff later. They also got to look for some “ghosts” she had hidden in the facility. They had an amazing time.

Thanksgiving brings all kinds of cooking and baking traditions.  Our facility chef and I decided to do a Redneck chef demonstration in making a thanksgiving meal.  It was more of a comedy act than an actual cooking demonstration.  They had a ball, and we were even able to keep the attention of our residents with dementia.  Of course you did not want to eat what we made, but we did have the real thing hidden and brought it out for everyone when we were done. They loved this so much they requested we do it again.

One of my all-time favorites was the year my assistant asked if we could celebrate Betty Grable’s birthday. She had her legs insured for one million dollars. Everyone knew who she was. We decided to throw a leg party in her honor. We went around and took pictures of everyone’s legs.  This included the residents, staff, the dog and the life size Santa that stood in the front of the building. Several people even hiked up their pant legs so we could get their bare legs. We took the pictures and cropped them a few inches above the knee to a few inches below the knee.  I then put the pictures together in a PowerPoint.  We made up a list of names and put them on paper.  They had to put a number in front of the name they thought the legs belonged to. I plugged the laptop into the 75-inch TV so the pictures would be nice and big.  The great thing about that was the pictures were much larger and, in some cases, showed things that weren’t so obvious on a 12-inch computer screen.

As I flipped from one picture to another, it was funny watching them trying to identify their own legs.  It was a lot harder than they thought. I wasn’t watching the big screen, only my computer so I made sure it didn’t advance before I wanted it to. One picture came across the screen and suddenly, I heard the residents start laughing. Then one of my male residents’ yells “I’d recognized that third leg anywhere” the room busted out in laughter.  I quickly turned around and turned 5 shades of red.  He had been one of the residents that had rolled his pant leg up and he was holding his pants up with his hands while I took the picture.  I thought I had cropped his hands out of the picture but apparently, I missed the knuckles on his hand. It wasn’t obvious on my little computer screen, but very visible on the 75-inch TV screen.  I have never lived this down.

I am so thankful that my residents felt they could come to me and make suggestions of what they wanted and that my assistant felt she could approach me with her ideas.  The Holidays can be every overwhelming and can cause us to lose our focus.  We all try so hard to make the holidays great for our residents.  May this Holiday season be less stressful and may you see the results of your efforts on the faces of your residents, their families and your co-workers.

Tammy Point NAAP Leadership Team