What Christmas Is Like in an Assisted Care Home

In another country I visited a home for the sick and elderly, just a few days before Christmas. In the lobby where I got permission to go into the ward there was Christmas music, familiar carols.

Then in the large room where more than a dozen women lay in hospital beds, there was no sound except that of someone groaning and two nurses talking to patients. Finding the woman I had come to visit, I greeted her with a smile and “Merry Christmas,” or actually the equivalent in her language.

To my surprise she burst into tears and said, “I didn’t know it was Christmas.”

I tell you this sad story only to say, this is not likely to happen in an assisted care community in the USA.

In the place from which I write, it is Christmas on every hall:  the nursing ward, memory care, assisted care, independent living. These are some noticeable signs of the season:

Tree trimming parties

Decorated trees everywhere

Sounds of Christmas music in the lobby

“Christmas crafts” on activity schedules

A college choir coming to perform for residents

An unusual number of visitors, family and friends who miss us at home, especially at Christmas

An unusual number of absent residents, people who are spending the holiday elsewhere with sons and daughters

Packages arriving, cards in mailboxes

Bus tours to see the Christmas lights

Buses leaving for a concert in a city auditorium or a church

Christmas movies in the community room

Resident choirs warming up for a performance

All this and a collection to reward our workers, the people who cook and clean and lift and protect and fix what is broken and come when called.   And another for elderly folks we don’t even know, with inadequate incomes, living somewhere else in subsidized housing. Because, even here, especially here, we must not forget that we are privileged to live in a country where some economic provision has been made for the time when we can no longer work eight hours a day. At the same time some of us have earned more or been luckier than others, and we know that many aging people cannot afford a Christmas tree, much less a ticket to the symphony. So even in a retirement community we have opportunities to make a small sacrifice for someone else. We can celebrate Christmas by giving.

Will all of this be happening in every retirement/ assisted living community? Probably not. And maybe you think you don’t even care.  But you do have to look before you jump. So, visit every department of a home you are considering, not just living spaces, but the game room, the library, the gym, the auditorium, thinking about things you would like to do.  And see the nursing wing, a place where (face it) you may one day have to spend Christmas.

Ask questions, any question, all of your questions.  Read the daily schedules, the activities list, the menus. Talk to the people who live there. Along with all the more practical issues, ask what happens on holidays.

Remember, if you are making this decision in February or July, that Christmas will come and is a season full of meaning.  A time of joyful worship.  A time when tradition matters. When music seems essential. And family relationships are huge, even if only a memory.  

While I wish you to find a perfect, happy place, I know that Christmas happens (or not) in the heart, no matter where you are.