Merry Christmas to the Sandwich Generation!

I wanted to share one last Smilebox card with you this year, along with a delightful Christmas CelebrationMedley from the album  Christmas Celebration, performed by the U.S. Army Field Band and Soldiers' Chorus.

I would also like to take this moment to say thank you to all the brave soldiers fighting to protect our freedom all around the world, along with their precious families, many of whom have sacrificed valuable time together during the holidays.

As a proud mom, daughter, niece, aunt, and friend of many brave men and women of the military, I am blessed by them and pray for God to encourage and protect each of them.

I pray too, for them and each of you, my readers, a blessed Christmas!

Make a Smilebox greeting

Merry Christmas! 

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Christmas Greetings From SandwichINK

Words of Encouragement for each generation:

They should teach them to their children,
That the generation to come might know,
even the children yet to be born,
That they may arise and tell them to their children,
That they should put their confidence in God
And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments

Psalm 78:5b-7

For more of Word-Filled Wednesday, Pictures and Words of Encouragement, please visit Forever His.

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Teach and Encourage Each Generation

Senior Home Care

EldercareABC has an interesting blog carnival up including info about Social Security's New Online Retirement Benefit Estimate Calculator as well as Christmas tips and gift ideas. A great resource for the Sandwich Generation caring for elderly parents.

Prescription drugs and aging parents at Transition Aging Parents.

Grandparents

If you want sugar cookies to make with your grandchildren but would prefer an ultra easy way to do it, here's a really cute idea. Via @njfamilymag

Gotta love technology. I just spent a lovely hour singing Christmas carols on the phone with my long distance grandchildren. My oldest granddaughter even played the piano so we could sing together and stay on key!

Teaching Kids About Stroke Can Spare Their Parents Disability.  Via @caregiving

Christmas Words of Encouragement

The angel said to Mary: "The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father, David…He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and His kingdom will have no end…"Nothing will be impossible with God!"         
        
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken.

Mary "gave birth to her first born Son and she wrapped Him in cloths and laid Him in a manger."

God's mercy…is on those who fear Him with godly reverence, from generation to generation and age to age.

Sandwich Generation

Never leave space heaters operating when not in the room or when you go to bed. Also don't leave grandchildren or pets or aging parents who are prone to falls unattended with space heaters!  Via @TinaFightsFire:
        
Easy, cheap and green way to wrap Christmas gifts. Head for the Dollar store, load up on the cute bags and white tissue. Pop the present in the bag, top with some tissue, and voila – a gorgeous gift. My grandchildren love them. They walk around with all their other gifts stuffed in the cute bags all day long. My senior mom loves them because they are easy to open AND reuseable. I love them because they are one of the cutest ways to save money. This Sandwich Generation family gives them their seal of approval.

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Twitter Resources for the Sandwich Generation: Prescription Drugs, Simple Sugar Cookies, Green Christmas wrap…

Frosted window panes, candles gleaming inside, Painted candy canes on the tree…

It's that time of year when the world falls in love, Ev'ry song you hear seems to say "Merry Christmas…"

Ahhh, one of my favorite Christmas songs.   And it carries with it a delightful reminder that one of the fun signs of the season are all the lovely Christmas lights coupled with Christmas carols and Christmas praise and worship songs. So far this year, my grandchildren and I have enjoyed a myriad of delightful displays as we've driven back and forth on errands. In addition, my senior mom, some of the grandkids and I have enjoyed a delightful outdoor display put on by the city they live in. This particular one is set up for you to park and walk around in the middle of the lights. I wasn't sure how well my senior mom would do since it was a particularly cold night. I should have remembered this is the same mom who tries to walk every single day no matter how cold it is! She did great and enjoyed it very much! Of course, the grandchildren found it the most magical, but we grownups loved the twinkling lights as well. My favorite part was the big tree that was set up to twinkle to the Christmas carols that were playing. Deee-light-ful!

Now that we are back home, we have a few more options like that available to us here. These won't be quite as much fun for the grandkids, but the aging parents will appreciate them more. You tour the display in your car with the heater running and the windows up. Granted, you might not get to hear their sweet Christmas carols, but the car radio or CD player should work just fine

I really appreciate that many of them are open through the first of the year. That way out-of-town guests who may visit after Christmas can join in the fun with us. I'm already looking forward to taking my senior mom and a good friend out to look at one of the displays available. It will remind her and me of one of our favorite Christmas memories – driving around to look at the Christmas light displays eons ago when I was just a little girl. My dad found the coolest area. Several neighborhoods got together and did block displays. One block would have all candy canes. Another block would have ice skaters. Nativity scenes were the priority on yet another block, and so on. We'd drive slowly by and enjoy the lights thoroughly. Then we'd head home for hot chocolate and Bing Crosby.

For those of you whose aging parents can't get out to see the Christmas lights, I hope you'll enjoy these videos I found. These light displays are incredible and I especially love that two of them are synchronized to Christmas praise and worship.  Merry Christmas!

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Light Up The Holidays For Aging Parents

I saw this little guy and he immediately reminded me of one of my favorite passages, 1 Corinthians 13. Those inspiring Bible verses are always wonderful for the Sandwich Generation as they are caring for elderly parents and especially encourage us and prepare us for when we get together with friends and family during the holiday season. As much as we love them, there are times when we may get a bit frustrated at comments that appear a tad insensitive or questions that seem a little intrusive. And hopefully, all those friends and family will bless us with this kind of love as well.

LOVE

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 

1 Corinthians 13:7-8a

For more holiday Words of Encouragement for Sandwich Generation caregivers for seniors who also help with their grandchildren, stop by Critty Joy.

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A Beary Good Way To Encourage Others

Christmas is a time for cheerful decorations and bright Christmas tree ornaments and lights to brighten hearth, home and yard. For many of us in the Sandwich Generation, the gaily colored leaves have disappeared, leaving a stark simplicity that, while beautiful is also a bit cold looking. Our decorations bring warmth and beauty back, cheering senior parents, grandchildren, and ourselves.

Our family has gone back and forth between two different plans for decorating. One I "borrowed" from a dear friend. We enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving, then spend the rest of the weekend busily decorating and getting the house all ready. The beauty of this plan is it's all done quickly and if there are any caregiving crises that arise, you still have everything done and giving a bit of cheer to a difficult situation.

My other favorite plan is to set out all the boxes in one, out-of-the-way area and we set up the tree. Then, each night after my children went to bed I would put out one, two, or three new items. Christmas tree ornaments, wall hangings, cheerful snowmen, and more. My kids would wake up and excitedly search until they had found all the new items. It was a fun way to celebrate during the Advent preparation for Christmas. It would be a bit tougher to do now since my grandchildren don't live with me. They're over often enough that I think they would get a kick out of it. Then again, I'm not sure my senior mom would appreciate having the boxes open for so long. But for any of you who have been so busy with senior care giving and grandparenting that you haven't had a chance to decorate, this could be an easy and fun way to do it, one or two steps at a time.

How about you? Do you have a fun tradition for decorating during Advent and Christmas? Are you able to incorporate the grandkids in it? Do they help you with putting up your Christmas tree ornaments?  We'd love to hear.

For more fun Advent and Christmas preparation ideas, be sure to visit Floss' site at Troc Broc and Recup. There you're sure to find an interesting read AND a list of several other blogs who are all part of A Pause in Advent.

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Two Fun Ways to Decorate For Christmas in the Sandwich Generation

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is the music. I grew up with the Christmas specials by Bing Crosby, the King Family, Lawrence Welk, Andy Williams, Dean Martin, and so many other wonderful artists. Today I have a huge collection of Christmas music on CDs. Most is packed away in storage, but thanks to iTunes I have several hours of  the songs stored on my computer. I usually add one – two new CDs each year, along with giving Christmas praise and worship music CDs as gifts.

This year I bought with the grandtween in mind, ending up with Santa Claus by Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana), and Joyful Kings by the Jonas Brothers. Last year my focus was more towards my senior mom's taste with In The Swing of Christmas by Barry Manilow along with The Ray Price Christmas Album.

Two of my favorite holiday only songs are The Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Kathy Griffith and Two Step Round the Christmas Tree by Suzy Boguss. You should hear my friend and I sing together on the chorus for that one!

As fun as all these songs are, they don't come close to the joy I feel when listening to Christmas praise and worship songs like Mercy Me's Gloria, Third Day's Joy to the World, and Michael W. Smith's Christ the Messiah. I listen to those and God gives me a brief respite in the midst of Sandwich Generation senior home care giving and grandparenting. It's like a tiny taste of what the shepherds experience! Listening to Christmas praise and worship is a wonderful way to bring the joy and peace Christmas should entail into the real world where the peace is so often missing.

Sing the glory of His name; Make His praise glorious! Psalm 66:2

Let all who take refuge in You be glad, Let them ever sing for joy; And may You shelter them, That those who love Your name may exult in You.  Psalm 5:11

Another way we enjoy the sounds of Christmas joy during Advent are by attending Christmas musicals at local churches. This year our new church is offering a contemporary Christian praise and worship night for tweens, teens, and young adults, a kids''' musical two of my grandchildren are taking me to, and a choir presentation of old and new Christmas carols and hymns. You can find times and dates for many of these at the church's website or in the local newspapers.

This is one of the best weeks to enjoy the Sounds of Christmas and it's a delightful way for all the generations to celebrate together. And for those of you who can't get out, or who have senior parents who can't go out, here's a special Christmas praise and worship just for you  – Casting Crowns singing Joy to The World. . You'll be happy to know that Amazon is giving away mp3 downloads of many Christmas songs, including some Christmas praise and worship!  That's definitely one of my favorite holiday ways to save money!  (Be sure to pop in on Christmas Day, too, for another one!  Merry Christmas!)     

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Merry Musical Christmas for the Sandwich Generation

One fun custom our Sandwich Generation family often enjoys during Advent is holiday baking. When I visited my long distance grandkids last year, we had a great time decorating and baking Pillsbury sugar cookies. They are great cookies to make with your grandchildren – easy and tasty! I cut them and the grandchildren decorated them. Since I cut them a bit on the big side, they all blended together on the cookie sheet to make one huge cookie.

This year we decided to do it again, only I was determined to do a better job. Instead of cutting the Pillsbury sugar cookies too wide, I cut them just as the directions said (novel thought, I know ).

Then I gave them to my grandchildren, along with five shades of thick decorative icing, three shades of thin icing, two packages of colored sugar “glitter,” and one jar of red cinnamon candies. Oh my, they had such a great time coloring, sprinkling, spreading, decorating, and tasting. When those sugar cookies were decorated, with all the icing, they were each about one inch wide and TWO INCHES HIGH!

I popped the pan into the oven for about seven minutes, then pulled it out, only to discover there were worse things that can happen to muchly-decorated sugar cookies than turning into one giant cookie. This year, the size of the cookies behaved perfectly, but the candy toppings melted all over the pan, leading to a LOT of scraping and soaking to clean those pans. The melted candies were hard as a rock and felt like they had blended into the pan. The cookies were just as hard to remove from the pan as the giant cookie had been.

I could have limited the girls and had them make picture perfect cookies – by doing a lot of the work myself. Frankly, though, the process was the most fun. So we just went back to square one, cut the cookies larger, and made one giant cookie per pan. They were thrilled with the whole process and I enjoyed it as well.

When they were all done and the sugar cookies were all baked, we cut them up, put them in plastic baggies to freeze, and enjoyed our tasty Advent celebration treats for the rest of the visit. We made enough that they should have cookies all the way through til Christmas. So even though I am back home a long ways away, I can still be a small part of their continuing Advent and Christmas season. Truly joy-filled activities for both grandparents and grandchildren! 

For more Advent ideas and thoughts, be sure to start at A Pause in Advent and follow the various links for wonderful posts from around the world. This week's thought at Troc, Broc, and Recup on 1 Corinthians 13 is wonderful! Last week I discovered several great new ideas including some fun Advent ideas to share with my grandchildren such as Floss' Priorities Jar, Manka's snowflakes, and Felicity's crocheted Christmas chain. I'm looking forward to more fun this week.

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Sugar Cookies + Grandchildren = A Sweet Advent Treat

Thanksgiving is Thursday, followed by Black Friday. Fun times for all on both days   After that, come two of my very favorite celebrations, Advent and Christmas. As a matter of fact, the first Sunday of Advent is this coming Sunday, November 29.  If you haven’t already done so, I would encourage you to purchase at least five candles – four red and one white. Even if you only see your grandkids once or twice through the season they, along with your senior parents, will enjoy an Advent wreath so much. It can also be a blessing to do your own personal devotions using them, whether just on Sundays or every night. And if you get the grandkids more often, this is such a grand way of teaching them about the true meaning of Christmas.

Starting next week, SandwichINK is joining in with Troc, Brock, and Recup by featuring a four week series of Advent ideas for Sandwich Generation Senior Care Givers and Grandparents. You’ll find Advent ideas here as well as at several other sites that will be a part of this fun series, giving you a great way to get in the mood and discover plenty of fun, interesting, and new ideas for celebrating the Advent and Christmas season with your multi-generational family.

The participants of this Advent series are from countries all around the world and are all ages including other Sandwich Generation-ers. I’m looking forward to learning new ways to prepare for Christmas from all over the world, as well as sharing some of my favorites as well. Join us, won’t you, as we have fun preparing our hearts for Advent, while teaching our grandkids the joy of doing the same.

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Advent Wreath Planning: A Sneak Peek for the Sandwich Generation

The holidays are coming closer and I suspect there’s a wide mixture over how various Sandwich Generation senior home care givers are feeling about it. Some of us are looking forward to it with total glee. Others are in the place I was the year my dad passed away. Our joy and anticipation in the season is tempered by sadness in dealing with our aging parent’s declining health.

I remember going to a Thanksgiving church service and being blessed by the joyful songs and the adorable children’s choir, then going home straight into a new crisis resulting in a trip to the emergency room. We never made it to the church’s Christmas programs which are often one of my favorite holiday traditions. The Hospice program helped so much, and also kept me so busy during that time period. There are many sad memories, but also many blessed ones, like how the kids helped out so wonderfully during the difficult situations, and how his great-grandkids could bring a smile to my dad’s face that little else could do. I especially loved how sweet my parents continued to be with each other during this hard time. It was definitely not our normal holiday season, but it was a blessed season of life!

Other senior home care givers are dealing with aging parents struggling with long-term chronic illnesses such as cancer. Last year, at the end of the holiday season, I read an interesting article by Melanie Haiken, from Caring’s website, How to Celebrate the New Year — with Cancer. It was such a good article, I put it on my calendar to be sure I shared it with you during this holiday season, well before New Year’s! Even though her focus is on cancer, I suspect that much of it is true for most of our aging parents with any kind of debilitating illness. Of course, you always want to check with your own doctor to be sure, but this article should give you some great questions next time you take your aging parents to the doctor’s office. If you aren’t going before the holidays, you could give your advice nurse a call and check with them.

After reading this article of how much our aging parents can probably do during the holiday season, I was greatly encouraged and I hope you will be too.

What about you? Do you have any tips to share with us on how to combine senior home care giving and the holiday season? We’d love to hear them. And be sure to sign up for the SandwichINK free email with plenty of resources to inform and encourage you during the holidays and beyond.

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Senior Home Care Concerns At Holiday Time