If you’re a manager or activity co-ordinator in residential care, this is probably the time of year when you’re looking for New Year’s Eve ideas for care homes.
Many of your service users will have treasured memories of spending New Year’s Eve at home or with loved ones, and the holiday season can bring up a lot of emotions – some happy, but some more painful. Taking part in New Year’s activities in their care home can entertain your clients and help them through what can be a difficult time of year.
In this article, we’ll look at some New Year’s Eve ideas for seniors, and how you can make the holidays special for the people you support.
If you haven’t planned for earlier in the season yet, check out our article on Christmas activities for care homes!
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What to consider when planning New Year’s activities for seniors
New Year’s activities for seniors, or other people who live in care homes, need to be inclusive. Some of your residents may have complex health conditions, mobility difficulties, issues with the memory, or other challenges to consider.
How to plan great New Year’s activities for seniors:
- Plan a range of activities. Some of your clients may prefer a party at midnight, whereas others might struggle to stay up that late or don’t want to be around a large group. Having a variety of New Year’s Eve ideas on offer in your care home means that your residents can choose the activities that work for them.
- Involve families and visitors. Some residents may get more visitors than usual at this time of year – and many of them would like to join in with the activities, especially young children.
- Remember residents who don’t have visitors. It’s also important to remember that some residents won’t be surrounded by large groups of family and friends. Despite living in a care home, people can still feel lonely. Try to ensure that your staff team spend extra time with service users who won’t have visitors at this time of year.
- Have lots of staff or volunteers available to help out. We know this can be difficult to arrange, but having a lot of carers or volunteers on hand can make events run more smoothly. You may need people to bring service users to a party, serve food, or run craft sessions. Consider how many people are available to help your residents before you plan big events.
- Remember that December can be a difficult time of year for some residents. If they’ve recently moved in or suffered a bereavement, Christmas and New Year activities might be too painful for them. Be understanding if they’d rather avoid the festivities. This might mean arranging separate meals for service users who want to avoid parties, or not decorating the area outside their room or apartment.
- Be mindful of routines and changes. Some of your residents might need to stick to particular routines. Some of the changes to décor and routine might be difficult for them to manage at this time of year, so you may need to offer extra support, or provide a safe space for them.
5 New Year’s Eve ideas for care homes
1) Host a New Year's Eve party
The obvious idea for a New Year’s Eve celebration is a party. You could decorate a hall or activity room, hire entertainment or create a New Year’s playlist, and hand out invitations to your residents. Some might like to get involved in party planning – why not start a party planning committee?
As you know, all service users are different. But as a care provider, you might run into some common challenges when thinking about New Year’s Eve party ideas for seniors. We’ve put together some points to think about before planning your New Year’s Eve party.
- Mobility issues: Some of your residents may want to dance during a party – but that might be difficult for some others. Instead, you could plan a party with quizzes, bingo, or other activities.
- Problems with alcohol: Lots of people celebrate the New Year with a glass of something alcoholic – but for some of your clients, this might not be an option. Whether they’ve struggled with alcoholism in the past or they’re on medication that means they can’t drink, an alcohol-free party might be a good solution.
- Accommodating specialist diets: Some of your residents may be on specialist diets. This might include needing to eat only at certain times, only eating specific foods, or even being tube-fed. We’re used to parties and celebrations revolving around food – but this can be complicated for people with complex health conditions. You may find it easier to host a party at a time when food isn’t expected, or to have a party during a regular mealtime so that clients can eat in their usual way if necessary.
- Finding space to host a party: If your care facility has a large hall or activity space, this won’t be an issue for you. However, we know that lots of care homes are short on space. If you don’t have extra space, why not hold a dinner party in the dining room?
- Staff and rota constraints: We know it’s hard to find staff for extra events – especially if they’re in the evening or planned for a holiday. If rota struggles are a regular occurrence in your care home, why not try care home software to make sure you’re optimising your team time?
- Difficulty with late nights: Many of your service users might prefer or need an earlier bedtime. You could host a mock countdown at an earlier time instead.
2) Host a mock countdown
Even if your clients can’t stay awake until midnight, you can plan a countdown earlier in the day.
If your service users want to watch a countdown and fireworks display, why not find one online? If you search for New Zealand or Australia’s New Year celebrations, you can even find one with the right year!
Alternatively, you could watch older countdowns from the UK and invite clients to share their memories – perhaps they remember hosting a Millennium party, or have fond memories of a certain year.
3) Plan a New Year’s quiz
The Big Fat Quiz of the Year is an annual TV show, but why not host one in your care home too? Ask a staff member, manager or resident to be the host, and invite other service users along for a quiz night.
You could ask questions about world news, sporting events, or even things that have happened in your care home community over the last year. Who remembers which month the new extension opened, or what colour the new front door was painted?
4) Host a reminiscence session
Reminiscence sessions are a great activity for residents living with memory difficulties, but they’re not the only ones who can enjoy them.
You could host a reminiscence session about past New Year celebrations. Lots of your clients may want to share their past memories and traditions with their neighbours. Do they remember the Millennium? Do they have memories of New Year celebrations when they had small children, or when they were young themselves? If some of your residents grew up elsewhere, what traditions did they have?
Alternatively, why not hold a reminiscence session about the previous year? Service users may like to remember events that have happened, fellow residents who have moved away or died, and share some of their memories of the past 12 months.
5) New Year’s Eve crafts for seniors
Some of your service users won’t come to a party or large group activity. They may dislike crowds or struggle with leaving their room or apartment. Alternatively, some residents may be immunocompromised or suffering from a winter illness. However, there are still ways to bring the festivities to them.
New Year’s crafts are an easy way to include more people in your New Year activities – whether they’re planning to come to other events or not. Craft sessions can be held individually or in groups, and can happen any time in the run up to the New Year – you don’t need to wait until 31st December!
New Year’s craft ideas:
- “Happy New Year” banners and signs – all you need is some paper and pens, pencils or paint
- Make a New Year wishing tree – use a twig or tree and invite residents to write their hopes and wishes for the next year, then tie them to the tree
- Make a photo collage from the last year – you could even do this as part of a reminiscence session, if you don’t hold regular craft sessions
Conclusion
New Year’s activities for seniors can have a variety of benefits for your clients, including:
- Reducing loneliness and isolation for service users
- Helping new residents feel like part of the community
- Improving clients’ emotional well-being
- Improving physical health through dancing and other active events
- Encouraging visitors to come along and spend time with their friend or family member
You’ll see these benefits from activities at other times of year as well. But during the holiday season, it’s particularly important.
Lots of residents struggle to get out and about, even into the garden or grounds, during the winter, and the dark nights and cold days can lead to low moods for a lot of people. Christmas and New Year can also be hard for those who have lost loved ones, so having events planned might really help your clients.
We hope that the tips in this article can help you plan a great New Year’s Eve for your residents – Happy New Year!
