Christmas in a care home |
Christmas Day in a care home is often thought to be the saddest shift of the year: a place where staff trudge in reluctantly through the dark and cold, while the rest of the country unwraps presents and gets merry; where residents sit quietly, reminiscing about the happiness of Christmases past.
And yet, for those of us who work these shifts year after year, that idea bears little resemblance to the truth. It is, strangely, one of the most joyous shifts to work. There is grief and gratitude, absence and presence, memory and forgetfulness, and moments of surprising hilarity. Someone will say something outrageous. Someone will fall asleep halfway through pudding. Someone will insist they have already had lunch or get away with having two.
Care home Christmases are more traditional. It often feels like a household in the original sense of the word. A place where people are gathered under one roof, bound not by choice or background, but by circumstance. The vulnerable are taken in. The able muck in. There is........