I’m excited to post this gift for you: a brand-new Advent Devotions and Activities booklet.
The weekly devotions and corresponding activities are short and sweet, and are especially designed to meet the spiritual needs of older adults with dementia. The goal is to help elders in your care to engage with the Advent season – the four weeks before Christmas – and its traditional themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.
If possible, have a simple advent wreath and candles (electric if appropriate) to light during each of the devotions and activities.
Download the dementia-friendly Advent Devotions PDF here.
Each week’s devotion includes:
- Opening Christmas carol to sing together. (Check out the Spiritual Eldercare sing-along Christmas carols on YouTube.)
- Opening prayer (read aloud together, or leader can read for the group).
- Simple, short reflection and discussion guide for that week’s theme.
- Closing prayer.
- Closing Christmas carol to sing together.
- Related activity suitable for a group or individuals.
As with all of my resources, this booklet is free — but if you’d like to make a donation to this ministry, please click on the wreath button in the right column.
Bless you during this wonderful season.
P.S. Many thanks to Jon Ball for content help; my daughter-in-law, Jennifer, for creative input; my husband, Dave, for expert formatting; and John Birch at FaithandWorship.com for his beautiful, original prayers and other Christian liturgical resources.
Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash
Spiritual Eldercare 
LOVE THIS!! Thank you so much Elisa!! This is a tremendous help!!!!
LikeLike
You’re so welcome! I’m excited to hear how it goes 😊
LikeLike
This is great stuff, Elisa! So glad you are doing this! Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving? XOXOX H.
On Fri, Nov 26, 2021 at 9:05 AM Spiritual Eldercare wrote:
> Elisa Bosley posted: ” I’m excited to post this gift for you: a brand-new > Advent Devotions and Activities booklet. The weekly devotions and > corresponding activities are short and sweet, and are especially designed > to meet the spiritual needs of older adults with dementia. ” >
LikeLike
Thanks so much, Hillary! I had fun making it. Yes, we had a good celebration — hope you did too! xo
LikeLike
This is great Elisa — thank you for sharing so graciously with everyone!
I am doing a series called “The Colors of Christmas” this year, but I may borrow some of this devotional for next year.
Blessings this Advent and Christmas season to you!
On Fri, Nov 26, 2021 at 10:05 AM Spiritual Eldercare wrote:
> Elisa Bosley posted: ” I’m excited to post this gift for you: a brand-new > Advent Devotions and Activities booklet. The weekly devotions and > corresponding activities are short and sweet, and are especially designed > to meet the spiritual needs of older adults with dementia. ” >
LikeLike
Ooh, I like that “colors” theme! Thanks for the kind words, Andrew.
LikeLike
I don’t know if you know about this website/organization. She has some nice resources, and nice old fashioned easy to sing hymns. Her worship services are wonderful (more interfaith), but a little long, about 50-55 minutes. The residents did like to sing a long to the songs.
This email is specific to Advent, with some nice devotions/activities. She does archive and make a library of all her progra!s that can be accessed anytime. They stream well to TV. These are quite dementia friendly, as she’s says, except for the length of some things.
Just another resource that came from Julie Feil, HMCRC.
LikeLike
Hi Julie — Did you mean to post this note here, or was this meant to be an email to a list of yours?
LikeLike