Cards and Decorations Can Benefit Nursing Homes

 
In response to my recent post about Christmas clutter clearing, one reader shared two great ideas for clutter clearing that can help nursing home residents have a happier holiday. She gave me permission to share her ideas with you.

1. Instead of recycling or tossing extra unused Christmas cards, offer them to the residents of a local nursing home to save them the expense and the hassle of buying cards. You might even consider including stamps with the cards to make it easy to write a note and mail the card. Nursing
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Have you ever noticed yourself agreeing to things you don’t want to do? Do you find yourself making personal promises or taking on projects or tasks that don’t align with your schedule, skills or goals? “No” is a word that many of us have a hard time saying. It is also a word that successful people have mastered! Which group do you fall into?

You may say “Rubbish! I have a loving family and am successful in my work even if I can’t always say no.”  The thing is, if you are not able to confidently allow “no” to roll off your tongue in every situation, then someone else is determining how you spend your time and the direction in which you focus your energy. Ultimately, this means other people are in control of your life.

Use Color to Cope With the Gray Days of Winter

If you live in states with deciduous trees, have you noticed how gray and stark the landscape has gotten since the leaves have fallen from the trees? I enjoy scanning the landscape when I walk Jake and Oz, my beloved pups, every morning.

Recently I noticed that the grayness was broken here and there by a pop of bright red and green from bows on wreaths and other Christmas decorations. It occurred to me that we begin to decorate for the holidays right after the leaves fall from the trees. The greens of the leaves are first replaced by shades of yellow, red and gold. Then when nature can no longer provide the energy of color, we pull out our bright lights and red bows. What a wonderful transition to winter!

Is it any wonder that the early days of December seem so bleak?Then, when we pack away our decorations after the holidays, we systematically remove the color from the landscape. Little do we know, but that energy was feeding us, nurturing us, giving us visual pops of joy. When we remove them we are left a primarily gray landscape and the white skies of winter. With the exception of berries on bushes and shrubs and an occasional cardinal, it’s difficult to find a pop of bright energizing color anywhere in the landscape.

Here are some suggestions for adding color to your outer world:

• add a colorful flag at your front door
• add a wreath with some red accents to your front door
• add doormats at your front and back doors that have colorful designs

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