Christmas season. Guests … parties … programs … gifts. Busyness. If you as a healthy person feel the time pressure, can you imagine how your invisibly disabled friends feel? Christmas and invisibly disabled people make a difficult combination.
The encouragement of being helped
At a very low time in my life — extreme fatigue and weakness that year, some special friends stepped in. A group cooperated to cook our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, except for the turkeys and dressing which Joe baked. And one lady even baked scrumptious cinnamon rolls for breakfast.
My weakened state even prevented me from addressing our Christmas cards. (This was before computers!) To the rescue, a dear friend who signed the cards and addressed the envelopes. (Joe was busy with Christmas activities at the Church he pastored.)
Under our Christmas tree that year: a gift certificate for homemade cookies for each month of the year.
And, of course, we loved the special ladies who did the heavy housecleaning tasks.
The list of ways to help a dweller is only limited by an observer’s imagination and their available time and/or money.
Remembering that the everyday life of an invisibly disabled person is limited, imagine what holiday days look like. The family could use help on many fronts, especially if children are involved. If the breadwinner is disabled, the spouse could be overwhelmed working and needing to do housework, financial records, parenting tasks, yet still get ready for the holidays. If the disabled person can still work, he or she is probably too exhausted after work to be able to do much.
One caveat: know your friend. He may not want help, even if he needs it. Or, she may be embarrassed at the idea of accepting help. However, you may still be able to help; you just may need to be extra-imaginative to be helpful and still considerate of your friend’s feelings.
Simple ideas
- Remember them with a card, phone call, visit, or gift.
- Take her to a Christmas program, but be ready to leave early, if necessary.
- Give a gift to a charity in his name.
- Take goodies to enjoy.
Modest ideas
- Watch the children.
- Parents can go gift shopping.
- Parents can decorate or bake something special.
- Provide transportation.
- Enable him to shop for gifts or decorations.
- Allow her to grocery shop for Christmas cooking.
- Activities for/with children.
- Help children make cookies.
- Help children make cards and/or gifts.
- Decorate tree. (Be careful with this one; many people have their own ideas, even if they aren’t fully able to carry them out.)
- Put up outside lights.
Complex ideas
- Housecleaning.
- Prepare house for guests.
- Buy gifts for entire family.
Can you take some time from your busy schedule to imagine how you might help your friend to enrich his or her holidays? Can you get a group of people together to expand the help?
Remember how special people encouraged me and my family? They helped us enjoy an otherwise very difficult period in our lives. Can you do likewise for your friend?
Great topic! About a year ago a friend in one of the illness groups bought me some food when I ran out before the end of the month. It was about the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me!
There were times in my life when I was in better financial shape and used to be able to do things for friends like buy them clothes and pay for an attorney that one friend needed but didn’t have the means to pay one herself.
Thanks. A real-life specific of how people can help. Sorry, tho, you’ve lost so much.