Want a way to beat winter blues? Hot chocolate! Host a Hot Chocolate Happy Hour where you’re the bartender who creates customized hot cocoa for your residents to sip on. Bring in some extras like marshmallows, chocolate chips, caramel sauce, whipped cream, crumbled cookies and more! You can use candy canes or cinnamon sticks as stirrers. This might be a great opportunity to invite grandkids and great-grandkids to enjoy a cup with their grandparents as well.
Baby, it may be cold outside, but you can bring the winter indoors where your residents won’t need to bundle up. Turn your activity room into a cozy picnic spot to enjoy some winter comfort food. Decorate the room with flannel, some pretty lights, and some winter centerpieces. Get your dining team to serve winter favourites like tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
As a fun group or 1:1 program, create a community playlist on Apple Music or Spotify that contains a favourite song for each of your residents. You can bring everyone together or go room-to-room and collect a favourite song from each person. You can use this playlist in music trivia, background music in the dining room, or as a guessing game program guessing which song was chosen by which resident.
Do you have residents in your community who love to act and play? Get them together to recreate a favourite film or TV moment. The possibilities are endless: recreating musical numbers, famous plot twists, or TV openers (here’s some inspiration). If you do this activity, please share it with us! We would love to see it!
Gardening doesn’t need to stop just because it’s winter. Gardening has been proven to have therapeutic benefits, and there are lots of plants that can be grown indoors.
Indoor gardening has been proven to be therapeutic for adults with Alzheimer’s or dementia since it gives them a sense of purpose. Amaryllis is easy to grow indoors and can last for weeks, as well as low-light plants, herbs, and flowers that could live in indoor window boxes. Bring Spring indoors this winter season!
There is most likely a wealth of amazing recipes all of your residents have. Invite them to contribute to a Winter Recipes book for your community. Get residents together and encourage them to bring any written recipes or ones that they can share verbally. Use a tablet or computer to document the recipes and include any stories about the recipe that residents share.
Compile them all together and print them off in a book format. You could sell the recipe book as a fundraiser for charity or for something for the recreation department that your residents could benefit from!
Get those noisemakers, glitter and party hats out! It’s the end of 2022! Along with great food, drinks, and music, host a resolution activity! At the party, have residents write down their New Year’s resolutions.
Once everyone has finished, place the resolutions in a jar or hat and shake it up. Participants can pull them out and guess who wrote the resolution. Once they’ve finished going around, residents can put their resolutions in a capsule, as well as write down their favourite things from the year and what they’re looking forward to in 2023.
For New Year’s Eve in 2023, everyone can open the capsule and see who stuck with their resolutions and if what they looked forward to occurred.
December 29th is the birthday of renowned cellist Pablo Casals, and International Cello Day was proclaimed to mark the date. It’s a day for cellists and music aficionados to come together to celebrate the large four-stringed instrument that is played seated. To mark the occasion, invite a local cellist to come play a concert for your residents and share facts about this beautiful string instrument.
Kwanzaa is not a typical religious holiday. Emphasis is placed upon teaching traditional African values and celebrating the heritage of Africans living around the world during the weeklong celebration. As Kwanzaa unfolds, celebrants focus on one of seven specific themes each day. Every night, a new candle is lit on the seven-spaced kinara in honor of that day's central theme following a few activities such as sharing a communal drink and a recitation. The nguzo saba (the term for these seven themes) connect to subjects pertaining to life, community, and higher purpose.
These seven themes include:
To celebrate each day, think about an activity or discussion group that fits the theme. Maybe for Umoja, you could organize a game that requires teamwork and collaboration. For Kujichagulia, have some friendly competition between residents. You can organize some volunteering on the day of Ujima and do an art program for Kuumba.
Secret Santa is one of the most popular Christmas activities. Before Christmas Day, residents who wish to participate can draw random names to become someone’s Secret Santa. Then on Christmas Day, residents can put their anonymous gift in front of the door of the resident they chose. Later on in the day or on Boxing Day, plan a get together where everyone can bring their gifts and guess who drew their name.
