Have posted about this before but now it's a reality I was hoping for some advice...
We are going up to mum n' dad's for Christmas as he's been v. ill and at 79, it may be the last family Christmas we get.
However, he has galloping Alzheimers (part of the reason why he's so ill, he 'forgets' to eat and gets violent when mum/community nurses try to persuade him otherwise) so we're not staying at their house as we would otherwise do, as he has got rather aggressive and shouty and has no patience with DD. We feel it's not fair on her to make her stay there when she won't be able to run about or play.
So, as a compromise, we are staying in a hotel. It was supposed to be a holiday cottage type place but there are precious few of these on the Wirral and by the time my stupid work had finally agreed to give me Xmas week off, they'd all got booked! So we're in the Novotel in Liverpool, we figured that if we had to be in a hotel, at least if we were in one with a pool there'd be something for DD to do!
However... although we are going over to Mum and Dad's on Christmas day, DD will be waking up in a hotel room on Christmas morning. I would like to make it as festive as I can for her, she still believes in the guy with the beard, so we will be taking her stocking up with us and bringing it out overnight, but if we were at home there'd be the glittery reindeer food, talc footprints in the fireplace, carols on the stereo, etc etc...
So, has anyone got any tips for making things a bit lovely for Christmas morning? We are forgoing the hotel breakfast (£13 !!!) and buying choc croissants and champagne to have in the room(our own adult tradition!) so will have that sorted, and am thinking of buying this to take with us, but is there anything else we can do?