The Other Side of Christmas.

Christmas is hands down my favorite time of the year.

Apart from my own religious observations, I enjoy the physical transformation of our living and work spaces. They reflect the joyous celebration and mood of the season. I also love sharing my West Indian Christmas traditions, food, desserts, and music with my family and children. Christmas songs and carols make up a large part of why I love the Christmas season. Quite simply, it is my favorite time of the year.

The other side of Christmas for me, however, contains a sense of grief. Christmas, even with its merriment, also marks a sorrowful time for me. It is the time when I lost my Dad. He was the most influential figure in my life and also like me, a lover of Christmas. I am no longer angry that he is gone. But I still experience the deep sense of loss that accompanies a loved one's passing. My family's challenges in caring for him fuels some of my passion for helping family caregivers.

For these final weeks of 2022, I would like to share with you the practical advice that I have given to family caregivers over my years of practice. It can be an overwhelming time for them, in which several concerns arise. My role in my years of practice has been to help them anticipate some of these challenges and to give simple and practical solutions.

I do hope that you will find some of these useful and that you will share them with a friend or family member who needs them.

1. Please take care of yourself - A lot of Christmastime lends itself to shopping and preparations and busyness. This contributes to burnout, worsening of health conditions, and medication non-compliance. It is easy to care for your loved one and get caught up in preparations while neglecting your own medical needs. Caregivers should always take the time to check their own medication and ensure that they have adequate refills. This may be difficult to do all at once, but a few minutes every day adds up. I always encourage keeping up with physician visits as well. It is also helpful to have a listing of your medical conditions and physicians handy, in case you need to have emergency care during this time.
2. Prepare your family members who have not seen your loved one in some time - For many families, it is important to set expectations for interactions with your elderly loved. This is especially important if you are expecting visits from family members who live away from you. They may be expecting to see a version of your loved one that is no longer true. This is especially true for people living with dementia, those with a recent stroke or have had new behavior or personality changes. Sharing this information decreases the risk of conflict and also helps others prepare for their visit. I encourage sharing short videos or having a video call in advance of their trip. A reflection on a day in the life of your elderly loved one is also useful. This also helps set the expectation of what the visit may be like. I had a family schedule short, daily video calls. This was done in anticipation of family visits to establish how little their mom was able to communicate after a stroke. This was helpful as family members saw and experienced the tremendous amount of care she needed. They banded together and created a daily care schedule for their time visiting. This allowed the primary caregiver, their sister, to have a much-welcomed break. She stepped away from caregiving duties for a few days as opposed to struggling to prepare for their visit while giving full-time care to her mom.
3. It is ok to change your traditions - This is always a difficult one to accept. As I stated above, even I have my own traditions around Christmas, which define for me the meaning of this time. However, when the needs of your loved one are in direct opposition to your traditions, it becomes necessary to change them. One simple example is attending concerts or touring light shows. These can be overstimulating to someone who is living with dementia. A better tradition may be to share Christmas stories at home or play Christmas songs from the years that they can remember.

Caregiving at one of the most joyful times of the year can be an incredible time to love and embrace the opportunity to care for elderly family members. It can be especially rewarding when families can come together to share in the experience. But, a bit of preparation and creativity are both needed. This is true when a family member's function or memory changes the activities that they can take part in.

If you are a family caregiver, what creative strategies do you use during the holidays?

Let me know in the comments.