For Seniors: Fun and Engaging December Event and Recreation Ideas
December is a time filled with lively events and festivities like Christmas and New Year’s.
Care facilities and day service centers are likely planning events and recreational activities to match the season, too.
In this article, we introduce recommended December events and recreational activities for older adults.
We’ve gathered a variety of ideas, focusing on themes related to December.
Many of these activities can also be enjoyed in other months, but they include seasonal touches that make them especially delightful now.
We hope these events and activities help older adults expand their social connections.
Please make use of this article during the busy year-end season.
For Seniors: Engaging! December Event and Recreation Ideas (1–10)
Kōhaku Uta Gassen (NHK New Year’s Eve “Red and White Song Battle”)
During the season when we spend more time indoors, try incorporating the Red and White Song Battle as a recreational activity.
Singing deepens breathing and helps maintain cardiopulmonary function.
In addition, group activities like singing together and clapping promote communication and enhance sociability.
In particular, raising one’s voice can brighten the mood and help relieve stress.
Watching older adults sing and move to the rhythm brightens the atmosphere of the room.
With the power of music, a warm space filled with interaction and laughter will make you forget the cold outside, if only for a while.
Christmas Word Search Game
How about a Christmas word-hunting game where you collect cards with individual hiragana characters and make words related to Christmas? It’s perfect for brain training, too.
First, prepare the characters needed to form Christmas-related words.
If you also prepare pictures that correspond to those words, it’ll be clear what to look for and which words to make, so be sure to have those ready as well.
Once everything is prepared, have the seniors combine the hiragana to make as many words as they can.
You could even make it a competition and see who can find the most words within a time limit! It would be great as a Christmas party activity, too!
New Year picture karuta making
December is the year-end season when we get ready for New Year’s.
Let’s make an original karuta game you can play during the holiday.
Decide on the starting letter, then draw illustrations to match it—this process helps build thinking skills.
If you include not only the words but also short stories or episodes related to each motif, you can share memories and make it even more fun.
It’s also great to actually play with the karuta you create: you’ll move your whole body while training concentration and quick reflexes.
Christmas tree curling
Let me introduce Christmas Tree Curling.
It’s a game where you slide plastic bottle caps with small drawings (made with your finger) on paper attached to them.
Even in the cold month of December, you can enjoy it indoors while seated.
Because you move your fingers and wrists, it helps improve dexterity and flexibility, and since controlling the strength is tricky, it also builds concentration.
You slide the bottle caps toward the point values written on the tree.
If a cap goes off the tree, it scores zero.
It’s a friendly, sociable game that naturally encourages communication.
You can enjoy the Christmas atmosphere while having fun.
Give it a try with older adults!
Last Christmas
This is an exercise set to the classic song “Last Christmas,” which you hear everywhere during the holiday season.
While seated in a chair, focus on step-like leg movements to thoroughly strengthen your lower body.
Matching the gentle rhythm helps you pay attention to the size of each movement—another key point.
Once you’re comfortable with the lower-body moves, start adding upper-body actions, such as swinging your arms in time with the stepping.
You’ll feel the joy of the music throughout your whole body, and it will also help you develop smooth, coordinated walking.
Winter picture letter
Winter-themed illustrated postcards are a perfect recreational activity for older adults.
Let’s paint winter scenes like snowy landscapes and Christmas images.
It stimulates the imagination and enriches creativity.
The fine hand movements also activate and stimulate the brain, offering a brain-training effect.
Expressing the winter season through art can refresh the mind as well.
Through illustrated postcards, seniors may also improve memory and concentration.
It would be wonderful if they could recall the winter atmosphere while feeling both joy and satisfaction.
Creating these postcards is sure to warm their hearts.
Movie screening
Since films were first publicly shown to general audiences in Japan from November 25 to December 1, 1896, December 1 is designated as “Movie Day.” How about spending Movie Day relaxing in your room and watching a film? Older adults might rewatch movies they actually saw in their youth, or try a genre they haven’t explored much before.
It could also be nice to head to a theater and see whatever is playing at the time.
If you’re watching in a facility, we recommend dimming the lights and preparing some easy-to-eat snacks and drinks to create a cinematic atmosphere.