Do care homes usually invite families for Christmas dinner visits?

[AuntieDen]

MIL is in a home and this will be her first christmas there. FIL and BIL are stressed and missing her.

This year we are meant to see my dad, who has cancer. I would rather not dissapoint him, but whatever we do the logistics of time off work, booking flights etc, mesn I need to know where we need to be soon, otherwise we won't be with either of them.

if you have people in a standard level dementia home - do you get invited for Christmas dinner? If i can work out if they will we can plan accordingly.

(Yes I have asked BIL but he thinks he has months to think about it and the only difference is if I cook christmas lunch. He isn't really in a place to consider how bloody complicated last minute info makes our lives at the moment! )

We were certainly invited to join both my parents for christmas lunch.

How many people would you be?

What does your husband want to do? It’s his family right?

When MIL was in a home, FIL was able to join her for Christmas Day including the lunch. I don’t think SIL went too. DH went in Boxing Day. But tbh MIL wouldn’t have known what day it was 🤷‍♀️

Why doesn’t someone - FIL, BIL, DH or you - just give the home a call and ask them?

Yes , whenever I visit my mum I can have meals with her including Xmas dinner

When my mum was in a care home, we took her out for Christmas day, by out i mean she spent the day with all the family not out to a restaurant.

Could this be an option?

I believe that some residents had families with them but no idea if it was for the full day/dinner or what.

Not invited but a newsletter in October says if you want to be there for Christmas lunch you need to book by x date and there's a charge for it. Places are also limited so you can't have loads of people all visiting the same person for lunch. Some of the residents go out with their families for the day or lunch whilst others stay in the home.

I saw my father just before Christmas last year and then again in January as I wasn't able to be there over Christmas itself. He had a fab time with a group of residents who don't have any family and as he had presents to open (from me and family spread out all over the world), a really good lunch, watched the Kings Speech (he would fret if he missed it), sang carols and watched TV he had a better Christmas than when I used to go to him and he'd refuse to engage with anything (except the Queens then Kings Speech).

I think it depends on the care home and number of residents. Where my dad was most went out to families and only those who could t eg dad needed a hoist to move stayed and had my mum eat dinner there.
ask the care home

It also affects OPs family plans as she’s trying to consider her own dad

Agreed, but she hasn’t said what her husband wants to do, only the FIL ./ BIL.

DH was not fussed about spending Christmas Day in the home with his mum - he was just glad that his dad could go, so we arranged our flights / schedule to take that into account and spent Christmas Day with my family.

But if DH had really wanted to see his mum on the day, we would have tried to do that too.

So if the OPs DH isn’t fussed then they can go ahead and make their own arrangements. But it sounds like no one actually knows what the home is offering yet 🤷‍♀️

Ours does, it didn’t specify any limits on numbers but only one of us went, the rest visited later in the afternoon.

The one my mum was in never did - mum was there for three Christmases. I visited her on Christmas Day apart from when I had Covid and my daughter and daughter in law went instead.

Some I've worked in do some dont. I've never know it to be more than just 1 person per resident though. They will often charge and need to book in advance

Thanks all, sounds like its inconsistent so we'll just have to phone the home and ask and hope that doesn't upset anyone.

DH (and I) would definitely not want to eat in the home, our hope is FIL can have Christmas lunch with his wife, without the stress of having her home for the day which seems likely to cause everyone upset and needs a few of us there if that becomes the plan. We could then spend a week ahead of Christmas spending quality time with FIL and as much time with MIL as seems to give her pleasure.