One of the things I love at Christmas time is singing at the holiday parties of memory care communities. My husband and I do this every year and we are deeply touched by the response.
We sing the old favorites:
Rudolph
Angels We Have Heard on High
Jingle Bells
I’ll be Home for Christmas and many more.
We keep the songs simple so they can sing along and they sing at the top of their lungs! The residents dance, they cry, they sing, they love the music! It is such an enormous and powerful medium. The people with memory loss are taken back to times they remember, people they loved; Christmas’ past. The tears are sometime sad but bring them back, if even for a moment to a place in time where they remember who they were and joy they felt in times gone by. It is moving and it is beautiful! This year, we made sure the families are invited for the big night at Belleview Heights. I have done music therapy for the support group there in the past year, but this night, this coming Friday, December 22, they will witness something they are not prepared or expecting to see. I cannot wait to see their faces when we deliver a Christmas present they will not soon forget! I will let you know how it goes!
