Christmas

[Kirsty Stephenson]

Christmas can be really tough if you are looking after someone with dementia, or if your family member or friend is in a care home. Do you have any tips on getting through it?

[Katy Evans]

Christmas can be such a difficult time when you are caring for someone with dementia and you need to ensure you look after yourself. There is useful information on our blog to help you prepare for the festive season

If you’re not feeling particularly festive that’s not a surprise, as Christmas can feel like just one more stressful thing you have to deal with as a carer. We have some useful tips to help you cope over the Christmas period.

Supporting someone living in a care home can be a particularly difficult time, particularly with current covid concerns. Ensuring you can maintain regular contact and spend ‘quality’ time together is challenging at this time. Connection can be many things and finding ways of making this work for you and the person with dementia is individual. Care homes need to ensure that they can facilitate and support communication wherever and however possible.

If you do feel that you’re struggling over Christmas, the Virtual Carers Centre has a range of advice and information to support you. We also offer a range of free live online learning sessions on a wide range of topics. The sessions are led by one of our expert practitioners and there is time built in to reflect, ask questions and for carers to relate the information to their own situation. You can find out more about our live online learning sessions and book a place.

Kind Wishes, Dementia Carers Count

[Susan Briggs]

Last #Christmas (2020) was my first home alone. I had been expecting to visit my husband in his care home, but then Covid rules changed all that. However, I decided to make #Christmas lunch as easy as possible. I am no cook, so found ready prepared items so easy to pop in the oven (roast potatoes, turkey joint serving 2-3 and sage & onion stuffing). You will be pleased to hear I did cook my own sprouts, carrots and new potatoes and managed to heat up a #Christmas pudding for one. Gravy was made with granules and boiling water, and I opened some cream for my Christmas pud.

I had already decorated my apartment – I had the time as I am retired. This year (2021) #Christmas will be very different as my husband sadly died in October. However, I live in a retirement village and there was a Facebook post asking for #volunteers to help out with #Christmas Day lunches. I had already been invited to go to my brother’s, but decided I would leave that till Boxing Day. Last night I did a trial run at serving #Christmas meals in our on site bistro. I now feel more confident about #volunteering my services on #Christmas Day. It will be different, it will be fun.

I do, of course, miss my husband very much. I have even found myself looking at the #Christmas cards I may have given him. But it is good to remember little things like #Christmas 2018 when he came to stay with me and he woke me with a cup of tea. This was amazing as it was over a year since he had left home and was not familiar with the layout of my kitchen, let alone making a hot drink. He had #FTD #progressive non-fluent aphasia variant.

Merry Christmas to you all

[Katy Evans]

Thankyou for your post and for sharing your story with the forum.
Firstly, sorry for your loss and hope that you find some comfort in the fond memories that you have. The cup of tea is a lovely one to share with us and shows the skills that can still thrive when someone has dementia.
Is there anything else you feel would help you personally in getting through this time? Is there anything you would like to see from Dementia Carers Count?

Helping others can give us the sense of worth and purpose, and giving your time to help others is a wonderful and generous thing to do. It sounds as though the practice run went well and I hope the main event does too! There is no shame in having any extra help from pre-prepared items…even the TV chefs have “cheat” items 🙂 I know I will be reaching for the Aunt Bessie’s frozen parsnips (they are really tasty!)

Covid rules have meant that time with family has been so restricted, and even more so in care homes. Is there anything that you found helpful in terms of the visits?

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Kind Regards,
Dementia Carers Count

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