Did you watch Downton Abbey? Can you remember the hustle and bustle in preparation for any function, Christmas, weddings, birthdays? Everyone was running around, up and down the stairs, flowers here, decorations there, more tables, moved the furniture. It was a crazy scuffle to get everything ready.
Well, if you thought that was crazy, you should be at Resthill Memory Care during the week before Christmas. The preparations are enormous. Thirty plus Residents and as many staff members will all be part of this celebration on Christmas Day.
In preparation, the support staff is seeing that all our ladies’ nails are properly manicured for the occasion. General grooming goes up a few notches as we really want everybody to look more than their best for the festivities. Our gardeners are bringing in the cucumbers for the ring salads and the watermelons for the late-afternoon snack on Christmas day. Alet will arrive with the bakkie loaded with groceries, drinks, more decorations, serviettes, snacks and surprises, and the gardeners are standing ready to take the different things to their different destinations. The kitchen in Burkei, the freezers in Robusta, the kitchen in the main house, stuff everywhere!
Alet prepared a menu ready for any 5-star restaurant. The gammons are cooked and glazed, chicken is prepared for roasting, legs of lamb, enough for three football teams, are in the ovens. Potatoes are in pots on the stove to be cooked for the delicious potato salad and the preparations for the other salads are in progress.
While all this is happening, it is Esmarie’s birthday and Alet and the staff is also making sure that it is a memorable day and that she does not feel forgotten in between all the Christmas preparations. Vanessa, our “cake lady” arrives with a surprise load of beautifully decorated cupcakes for the occasion.
Boxes and boxes of decorations are pulled from the stores and each house gets its own beautifully decorated, Christmas tree. Decorations are selected for the halls and the rest of the houses and at Burkei we must make sure that they have the biggest Christmas tree. If not, we will have a very unhappy Resident as Lilly believes that that is how it must be. We are also not allowed to even talk about Christmas before the 19t November as that is Lil’s birthday and it must happen first before we can do or say anything about Christmas.
Decorations for the Christmas table are selected. Each year the Christmas tables are carefully and very tastefully decorated in the Christmas tradition with beautiful flowers, candles, the right serviettes and other decorations. Plates are packed out and shined. The cutlery is rubbed until you can see yourself in them. Candelabra is polished and the glasses are selected to match.
Esmarie and Alet are wrapping Christmas gifts for all the staff members. They see that all the gifts that arrived for our Residents from their families, are under the rights trees in the respective houses. They also make sure that there is at least one gift for every Resident and that no one is excluded. Our Residents love receiving gift packages that they can unwrap. Even if it is just a bar of chocolate, they still get very excited about it.
Resthill has its own pets and then quite a few of the Residents’ pets are also around. Don’t think for one moment that they are forgotten. Red ribbons will be tied to their collars and they will be part of the festivities.
We cannot thank our cooks enough for all the effort they put in every year. The beautiful salads and the stunning trifles. The help with dishing up and cutting and feeding when it comes to our Residents. A big thank you also goes to the rest of the staff that is on duty on Christmas Day, helping with the laying of the tables, bringing on the platters of meats and bowls of salad to the tables, to lit the candles, bringing the Residents to the tables and sitting them down. They see that everyone gets a plate full of festive food and assist them to eat the deliciousness. To see that everyone gets a serving of the scrumptious desserts. A lot of work is going into the celebration at Resthill but seeing the enjoyment in the faces of our Residents makes every effort worth it and we will do the same and more next year.
Indeed, Christmas is the season our residents “relive” so well. They recall memories of times with family and friends.