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Holiday Decorations


Have you eaten your Wheaties? Are you ready for the holiday season? I've been out shopping and getting ready to decorate our community for Christmas and Hanukkah. I will have the day off after Thanksgiving, so I will start on Monday.

I was wondering if you, as the activities director of your community, are the responsible person for the decorations. Do you have volunteers, staff members, residents, or an outside company help you?  In my retirement community, the maintenance department does all of our outside lights and they help me get the artificial trees up. This year we will be buying a live tree for our lobby, since it is newly renovated and we thought that it would be a nice change.

I do have managers that like to help also, so they help me decorate the trees. We have a tree in the lobby, as I mentioned, plus one in our casual dining area, one in the auditorium, and one in the main dining room. We also have a card tree where residents tie on their greeting card for the community to see. It makes a pretty tree. I simply put the tree out with lights on it, and then place a hole puncher and sleigh full of pre-cut red ribbons for them to use next to the tree.

Then, of course there are the decorations that jazz up the lobby and auditorium. Those are the special items that I think really make the community feel special and ties the trees into the room. The special Santa that they see each year, the nutcrackers, etc. etc. that set the scene for the room. I enjoy decorating the community more than I do my home these days. Or maybe it is that by the time I've finished at work, I don't have much energy left for home. I'm not sure, but I do know that this is the busiest and greats time of the year.

I hope that you enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday and that you will enjoy the crazy-ness of the next few weeks as activities director! Take a deep breath and GO GET IT DONE!
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  1. AnonymousNovember 27, 2011 at 8:52 PM

    I'm in charge of activities for independent living at a retirement community in Texas. It's just me to do all the decorating. I do three trees: 1 in the lobby and two in different activity rooms. I decorate all of the first floor except the dining room. The dining room staff does that. The clerical people decorate the second floor outside their offices. I do have two drivers that help when their schedule allows and sometimes I get a resident who wants to help. I just discovered your blog and can't wait to read your ideas and hopefully be "recharged" with your ideas and support. I've been at my job 16 years and this is a very tiring time of year for me. I love it, but as you said, after decorating at work, my home suffers and I don't want it to be that way.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MarthaDecember 3, 2011 at 10:37 PM

    Hi. Thanks for commenting and for finding my blog. I'm sorry that I did not see it sooner! 16 years on the job is great! I can't wait to hear your ideas too! I hope you find what I've written helpful in the future. Take care and happy holidays! - Martha

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