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Decorating the holidays

December 23rd, 2020

Residents at Points West Living Athens Creek in Penticton have been having a grand time preparing for Christmas. They exchanged decorations with a kindergarten class, had a Santa scavenger hunt, and decorated the doors of their suites.

Decoration exchange:

“We swapped decorated ornaments with our kindergarten friends at Parkway Elementary,” says recreation coordinator Ellie Bertrand. “We baked salt dough ornaments and split them up, giving the Parkway kids 20-30 to decorate. We decorated ours and then swapped ornaments with the kids. Our tree has very pretty ornaments from the kids and the kids each received a goodie bag containing a candy cane and an ornament decorated by our residents.”

Santa Scavenger Hunt:

“A few weeks ago, one of our employee care partners, Sean Hunt approached me with an idea,” says Ellie. “His kids’ school was doing an ‘activity’ advent calendar, and one of the days was ‘be kind to a senior’.

“So, a bunch of kids in the school made artwork and cards for our residents. Sean and one of our residents, Liz Annesley turned the art into a scavenger hunt. One evening, after most everyone was in bed, they put different stickers on the children’s art pieces and put them up down all the hallways. They placed a scavenger hunt letter and checklist ‘from Santa’ on each resident's door. When the residents awoke, they were surprised to find the scavenger hunt challenge. The residents have commented on how sweet it was of all the kids.”

Door Décor:

“We also had a door decorating contest,” says Ellie. “We asked all the residents to decorate their suite doors. A small group went around on December 10th to judge the doors, and their votes plus resident feedback determined the winners. Suite 301 and 115 tied for first place. Suite 318 came in a close second. All our residents did an amazing job decorating their doors.

Photo: Resident Liz Annesley decorates salt dough ornaments to exchange with kindergarten students at Parkway Elementary.

More photos at Flickr: Decorating the holidays

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